Several top executives at Twitter have resigned after their decision to censor a documentary titled ‘What is a Woman’ was overturned by the owner of the micro-blogging site, Elon Musk.
The documentary featuring author Matt Walsh was released last year. It highlighted the ever-changing definitions of sex and gender, especially in the context of the transgender rights movement.
Walsh decided to stream the film for free on the official Twitter handle of The Daily Wire, where he works as a columnist, on the occasion of its first anniversary.
Hours after it was made available on Twitter on Thursday (June 1), the documentary’s visibility was reduced significantly and was dubbed ‘hateful content’. “Visibility Limited: This tweet may violate Twitter’s rules against Hateful conduct. Learn More,” read a disclaimer at the bottom of the tweet.
Matt Walsh was accused of transphobia and violating Twitter’s rules on ‘misgendering’ (the act of identifying individuals by their biological gender instead of their self-proclaimed gender) through a scene in the documentary where a father refers to his daughter as her.’
He took to Twitter to inform, “Our film has been posted for a couple of hours. You cannot retweet it. It will not appear in anyone’s feed. It has been flagged as hate speech. It has been blacklisted from the trends list. It still has nearly 900 thousand views.”
Meanwhile, the co-founder of The Daily Wire, Jeremy Boreing pointed out that although Twitter removed ‘misgendering’ from its policy after Elon Musk’s takeover, the micro-blogging site still classifies such an action as ‘abuse’ and ‘harassment.’
He said that the Twitter moderation team asked them to edit some parts of the documentary, failing which the visibility of the film will be drastically declined.
Jeremy Boreing said, “Twitter replied that our own followers would not be able to see it in their feeds. This, they said, is part of their “speech not reach” policy.”
Intervention of Elon Musk
Following an outpour of support from conservative circles, Twitter owner Elon Musk intervened and said that the ‘hateful conduct labelling’ was a mistake on the part of the Twitter moderation team.
He stated, “This was a mistake by many people at Twitter. It is definitely allowed. Whether or not you agree with using someone’s preferred pronouns, not doing so is at most rude and certainly breaks no laws.”
“I should note that I do personally use someone’s preferred pronouns, just as I use someone’s preferred name, simply from the standpoint of good manners. However, for the same reason, I object to rude behaviour, ostracism or threats of violence if the wrong pronoun or name is used,” Musk further emphasised.
He also promised to fix the issue by June 3rd while responding to Matt Walsh.
Interestingly, the issue was fixed by the end of Friday. “Fixed,” Elon Musk responded to a tweet by Chloe Cole, a victim of woke culture. Cole underwent double mastectomies and took puberty blockers as a child to transition into a man.
Later, she de-transitioned to become a woman. Chloe Cole is now fighting to protect minor children from undergoing gender transition surgeries.
The Twitter owner later promoted the ‘What is a Woman’ documentary on Twitter. “Every parent should watch this,” he said.
Musk further added, “Consenting adults should do whatever makes them happy, provided it does not harm others, but a child is not capable of consent, which is why we have laws protecting minors.” At the time of writing, the documentary has been viewed over 100 million times.
Aftermath of the censorship
The decision to censor the documentary was reportedly taken by Ella Irwin, Twitter’s Head of Trust and Safety. After the warningunderneath the tweet of The Daily Wire was removed, she resigned from the job.
Ella Irwin’s team had allegedly been responsible for limiting the spread and visibility of the film. Similarly, Twitter’s head of brand safety and ad quality, A.J. Brown, also left the company.
Brown reportedly worked on preventing ads from appearing next to unsuitable content. On being asked about the matter and whether the resignations were related, Musk said, “Director related.”
Meanwhile, another top Twitter executive by the name of Maie Aiyed also resigned from Twitter. She worked as a program manager (brand safety partnerships) at the company.
Several Twitter users pointed out her casual racism and disdain for individuals belonging to the white race.
“There are so many people that don’t have people speaking for them’ ya like black people, trans people, Muslim people wouldn’t even GET the platform you had even if they worked twice as hard, so..rest assured, white men are represented in all,” she said in one of her tweets.
“[W]hite people act like flossing is a personality trait LMFAO…White guys think buying Elvis memorabilia is a suitable substitute for a personality lmao,” her other tweets read.