It's been a busy week in Big Tech censorship, as each day brings with it an update on how Twitter is punishing The Babylon Bee and those who dare to support the satire site. Twitter seems to be particularly relentless, though, in that it's denied The Babylon Bee's appeal when it comes to locking their account for promoting a post from March 15 that referred to Health & Human Services Assistant Secretary Rachel Levine, a biological man born Richard Levine, as their "man of the year."
Update: Twitter has denied The Babylon Bee's appeal. They wrote, "Our support team has determined that a violation did take place, and therefore we will not overturn our decision."
— Seth Dillon (@SethDillon) March 24, 2022
The update came from CEO Seth Dillon on Wednesday night. He had tweeted a short time earlier calling out the platform's mission statement, which supposedly shows them in favor of free speech and expression.
Twitter's mission statement really does make it sound like they're a platform dedicated to free expression. pic.twitter.com/fjItUDjCal
— Seth Dillon (@SethDillon) March 23, 2022
Dillon also further called out Twitter's "hateful conduct policy" when it comes to stating biological realities about gender, despite claiming to be in favor of freedom of expression in a thread on Thursday afternoon.
2. And yet they've baked their controversial gender ideology into the Twitter Rules so users have no choice but to agree with them if they want to have a voice on the platform. Rather than "serving the public conversation," they're squashing it, forcibly suppressing one side.
— Seth Dillon (@SethDillon) March 24, 2022
4. But that's hardly a settled matter. In fact, most people reject the idea that gender is merely a social construct. Most people know what a woman is, and what a woman isn't. I'd argue that we all do; some of us are just getting very good at lying to ourselves and others.
— Seth Dillon (@SethDillon) March 24, 2022
5. So let's talk about these issues. Let's debate them. Let's even joke about them. That's how the public conversation is best served. You can't have a range of diverse perspectives on a platform that strictly enforces ideological conformity under the pretense of moderating hate.
— Seth Dillon (@SethDillon) March 24, 2022
After censoring The Babylon Bee on Sunday, Twitter also punished editor-in-chief Kyle Mann and founder Adam Ford, who also co-founded and is the CEO of their news site, Not the Bee. Mann and Ford had not even been directly addressing Levine but rather were poking fun at Twitter with their tweets. The social media platform still found them to have been "violating our rules against hateful conduct."
Turning Point USA's Charlie Kirk also had his account censored for referring to Levine as Richard Levine and "a man."
Tucker Carlson, who was also censored by Twitter for standing by The Babylon Bee and Kirk, addressed the matter on his Wednesday night show, as Julio covered earlier on Thursday.
In a speech earlier this year, Dillon had warned that "comedy is under attack right now" when it comes to "this whole weird thing where people are trying to limit what you can and can't say, what you can and can't joke about."