Of course, this policy aimed to make suspending conservatives easier on the platform. For years, Twitter had a policy of suspending or censoring tweets that “deadnamed” someone. The act of deadnaming refers to a transgender person by the name they took before transitioning. Ellen Page transitioned into Elliot Page, but if you referred to this actor as “Ellen” or any gender-specific pronoun that isn’t masculine in posting about her, you could see warning labels or shadow banning occur for your posts.
Remember, there are a lot of rules here, some of which aren’t exactly in keeping with our constitutional framework. It might be incredibly upsetting to some people, but this is America. This is the real world, a dark, cruel place, so get used to it. Offending someone should be codified in the posting guidelines for a company where free speech is its currency. Twitter forgot about that, leading to an unholy alliance between the social media giant and the federal government, specifically the FBI, which led to the establishment of an extensive censorship operation that did influence public opinion.
Now, the Associated Press is reporting that Elon Musk, Twitter’s new owner, has silently removed these unconstitutional guidelines on free speech. Only posts that might violate its terms of service regarding hateful content will be flagged. This announcement was not met well with the usual suspects (via Associated Press):
Twitter has quietly removed a policy against the “targeted misgendering or deadnaming of transgender individuals,” raising concerns that the Elon Musk-owned platform is becoming less safe for marginalized groups. https://t.co/HeqEumUocV
— The Associated Press (@AP) April 18, 2023
Twitter has quietly removed a policy against the “targeted misgendering or deadnaming of transgender individuals,” raising concerns that the Elon Musk-owned platform is becoming less safe for marginalized groups.
Twitter enacted the policy against deadnaming, or using a transgender person’s name before they transitioned, as well as purposefully using the wrong gender for someone as a form of harassment, in 2018.
[…]
“Twitter’s decision to covertly roll back its longtime policy is the latest example of just how unsafe the company is for users and advertisers alike,” said Sarah Kate Ellis, the president and CEO of the advocacy group GLAAD. “This decision to roll back LGBTQ safety pulls Twitter even more out of step with TikTok, Pinterest, and Meta, which all maintain similar policies to protect their transgender users at a time when anti-transgender rhetoric online is leading to real world discrimination and violence.”
People can be nasty to one another. It’s their right, barring any physical altercations. It’s free speech. And yes, hate speech is free speech. There are probably various opinions that both sides can agree on, which are deplorable in the extreme. But people who hold those terrible views still have a right to voice them. More voices, not less, is always the safer choice when it comes to preserving individual rights and freedom of speech, something the Left has forgotten. They used to be able to handle everything. Now, they're snowflakes who go insane when someone says that only women can get pregnant, a biological fact.
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