Twitter Declares The Phrase ‘Learn to Code’ is Abusive Behavior After Numerous Journalists Get Laid Off

Spencer Baculi |

Jan 29, 2019

Last week, the internet was rocked with the announcements that popular online news outlets Buzzfeed and The Huffington Post would be laying off members of their respective teams. While some believe the layoffs come as the parent companies realize that their traditional models of building a massive audience and attracting digital advertisers are no longer acceptably profitable, others point to a rejection of clickbait headlines and patently false stories by the public as the key reason for falling revenue streams.

Recently, both outlets have come under fire for publishing ‘fake news’: On January 17^th, Buzzfeed ran a damning story regarding former Trump attorney Michael Cohen lying to congress about a Trump-tower project in Moscow, only for Special counsel Robert Mueller’s regularly silent office to issue a statement categorically denying the accuracy of the Buzzfeed report. Following the now infamous events of the January 18^th anti-abortion event March for Life, The Huffington Post ran numerous articles attacking the Covington Catholic High School students for being racist, disrespectful, and bigots, and even in the face of exonerating video evidence, doubled down on their condemnation by continuing to denigrate the students based on their own false narratives.

Following the announcements of these layoffs, a multitude of journalists who had been laid off took to Twitter to announce their unemployment and promote their services. Users across the internet quickly began to respond to these announcements with the phrase ‘Learn to Code.’ This phrase is in reference to the derision and condescension from journalists who advised that coal miners facing the extinction of their livelihood should just accept it and ‘learn to code’ if they truly wanted to remain relevant in the economic landscape.

Hey laid off journalists who are upset that people are telling you to “learn how to code”:

Go mine some coal and then go fuck yourselves. pic.twitter.com/lYWDIIcCKm

— Alex VanNess (@thealexvanness) January 27, 2019

In the past, when blue collar workers suffered layoffs, bloggers and journalists would write articles telling them to “learn how to code”.

Now that bloggers and journalists are being laid off, they are getting mad at people telling them to “learn how to code”.

That’s the joke. pic.twitter.com/z0cnkApJdl

— Best Mom Eva (@mombot) January 25, 2019

As more and more journalists were met with ‘learn to code’ in response to their lamentations, some began to grow aggrieved with the phrase:

I believe there is a special, dedicated section of Hell just for people with anime twitter avatars who tell laid-off journalists to “learn to code”

— Punished “Venom” Patrick George (@bypatrickgeorge) January 24, 2019

I did not get laid off this week, but these goons decided to come for me, too (again). Question: what’s the obsession with coding? Is it, uh, code for something? pic.twitter.com/x5jkGqwaUa

— Julia Ioffe (@juliaioffe) January 26, 2019

You can taunt journalists with “learn to code” all you want but you can’t run from the fact that if you switched jobs for 6 months, the journalists would be better coders than you would be at journalism.

— Katelyn Burns (@transscribe) January 25, 2019

Some even became convinced that the growing frequency of the use of the phrase was a 4chan trolling campaign, despite provided screenshots only showing that 4chan was celebrating the announcements:

btw, if any other journos targeted by layoffs are getting masses of “learn to code” harassment, it was coordinated on 4chan (of course) pic.twitter.com/DtpinjWhID

— Talia Lavin (@chick_in_kiev) January 25, 2019

Mere days after journalists took issue with the three word phrase, The Wrap media editor Jon Levine revealed that use of the phrase was soon to be classified as ‘abusive behavior’,

I am told by a person in the know that tweeting “learn to code” at any recently laid off journalist will be treated as “abusive behavior” and is a violation of Twitter’s Terms of Service

— Jon Levine (@LevineJonathan) January 28, 2019

Another user replied to Levine with proof that one of their tweets containing the phrase had violated Twitter rules:

pic.twitter.com/LdpxSyap7N

— Learn To Code (@GayPatriot) January 28, 2019

However, within hours Twitter had responded to this development with a spokesperson clarifying the specifics of the policy change to The Daily Beast reporter Max Tani:

Twitter spox responds: “It’s more nuanced than what was reported. Twitter is responding to a targeted harassment campaign against specific individuals — a policy that’s long been against the Twitter Rules.” https://t.co/AekTbX3NT8

— Max Tani (@maxwelltani) January 28, 2019

Levine also issued an update to his original tweet:

Just to be clear. They are backing away from what they originally told me. This “more nuanced” business was not part of my original email exchange with them. They also requested that I share this link on abusive behavior https://t.co/WmkL5iUp4Z

— Jon Levine (@LevineJonathan) January 28, 2019

Despite this clarification, many users feel that Twitter’s policy shift is hypocritical at best. Users cite the fact that tweets urging people to ‘fire on any of these red hat b****** when you see them’, comparing the Jewish people to termites, or directing the very same phrase of ‘Learn to Code’ at blue collar workers had no action taken against the tweets or the accounts posting them, while Twitter instantly sought to protect the litany of unemployed journalists against a three word piece of advice by taking direct action.