Yoel Roth, the former head of Twitter's Trust and Safety team, appeared on Kara Swisher's podcast to talk about what is what like to be part of Twitter before and after Elon Musk took over the social media website. At one point, Roth defended Twitter's decision to ban the Babylon Bee from posting over a joke poking fun at Assistant Secretary for Health Rachel Levine.
The satirical site was locked out for violating Twitter's misgendering policy by run a story naming Levine as the Bee's "Man of the Year." It appeared to be one of the final missteps by Twitter that motivated Musk to buy the website. While Swisher said she did not think the joke was funny, she thinks the Bee shouldn't have been locked out for it.
"I want to start by acknowledging that the targeting and the victimization of the trans community on Twitter is very real, very life threatening and extraordinarily serious," Yoel began.
"We have seen from a number of accounts, including Libs of TikTok notably, that there are orchestrated campaigns that particularly are singling a group that is particularly vulnerable within society and so, yeah, not only is it not funny, but, it is dangerous and it does contribute to an environment that makes people unsafe in the world. So let's start from a premise that it's f**ked up," Roth continued.
Roth added Twitter's policy is that misgendering is not allowed and the Bee violated the rule.
Roth defends the decision to ban @TheBabylonBee: "Not only is it not funny, it is dangerous"
— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) December 4, 2022
Kara Swisher, no fan of the Babylon Bee, gently disagrees -- noting that the account was engaged in satire. "It's still misgendering," Roth insists pic.twitter.com/BlwksaKDH3
Roth repeatedly mocked and criticized Republicans on his Twitter account during his time with the company. Roth initially stayed after Musk became CEO but eventually left when it became clear things would be very different.