Twitter can’t make its mind up on the radicalized gender ideology of the left and initially “canceled” a deal with The Daily Wire to promote a documentary.
The Daily Wire Co-CEO Jeremy Boreing slammed Twitter, accusing the company of thwarting a partnership to premiere What is a Woman? free of charge on the platform. Boreing said Twitter alleged that the documentary violated the platform’s policy on “misgendering” and it threatened to censor the film if shared on its platform.
Twitter apparently backed out of the deal after it had already signed a deal with the news outlet, which included a package that permitted the movie to be hosted on a dedicated Twitter page.
Boreing declared in a tweet: “After reviewing the film, though, Twitter let us know that not only could we no longer purchase the package they offered, they would no longer provide us any support and would actually limit the reach of the film and label it as ‘hateful conduct’ because of ‘misgendering.’”
Musk responded to the reported bombshell claiming that “[t]his was a mistake by many people at Twitter. It is definitively allowed.” The Twitter owner also added that not using preferred pronouns is “at most rude” but warned that misgendering individuals “certainly breaks no laws.” Musk condemned threats of violence as a result of deadnaming, saying in his tweet: “However, for the same reason, I object to rude behavior, ostracism or threats of violence if the wrong pronoun or name is used.”
MRC Free Speech America Vice President Dan Schneider reacted to Musk's response, stating, "It's more clear than ever before that Elon Musk is fighting a civil war within his own organization. Many of his employees refuse to follow his leadership to make Twitter a platform for free speech. We applaud Musk for standing up for the First Amendment and American values."
Twitter reportedly cited the commentary of two individuals featured in the film, according to Boreing. The film shows the father of a transgender child, who pushed back against violent gender ideology and “refers to his 14-year-old daughter as ‘her.’”
The second part of the film, which allegedly went against Twitter’s policy, came from a small business owner in Washington state who “uses the ‘wrong’ pronoun in a confrontation with a transgender woman,” Boreing added. Don Sucher was heckled by Tiesa Meskis, a self-identified “transgender” person, who stormed into Sucher’s store to protest a sign that read, “If you are born with a d–k you are not a chick.”
Twitter’s blatant threats of censorship mark a stark reversal of Elon Musk’s dubious promise to make Twitter 2.0 a free speech platform. However, these developments should surprise no one. Twitter previously removed parts of its policy that barred “deadnaming” and “misgendering” transgender individuals. The move was championed as a victory for free speech, but the platform still considered “gender identity” a “protected category” against its so-called hateful conduct policy, as MRC Free Speech America reported in April.
The new policy echoed Musk’s publicly announced support for the transgender community. “I absolutely support trans, but all these pronouns are an esthetic [sic] nightmare,” the Twitter owner said in a tweet on Dec. 16, 2020. Musk also tweeted, “What is a woman?” on May 29, 2023, responding to a question from Spotify Founder and CEO Daniel Ek, who asked in a tweet, “If aliens were to visit us right now, what’s one thing we’ve chosen to do as a society (that feels relatively simple or obvious) that would be super hard to explain?”
The policy change came three weeks after MRC Free Speech America released a report that showed that censorship cases on Twitter were shockingly on the rise after Musk took over. Researchers found 293 cases of documented censorship from Nov. 4, 2022, through Mar. 4, 2023. That marked 67 more cases than the 226 documented in MRC Free Speech America’s exclusive CensorTrack.org from Twitter’s old anti-free speech regime.
Conservatives are under attack. Contact Twitter at (415) 222-9670 and demand that Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency, clarity on so-called hateful conduct and equal footing for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us at the Media Research Center contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.
