Elon Musk and new pronoun rules on Twitter

Bliddy hell!

This is even worse than the UK's "non-crime hate incident" bollox.

Really?

I think that anyone who tries to compile someone else's speech, in order to force them to lie abut the evidence of their own eyes, is an A-hole.

We'll have to agree to differ.

I’m not sure where Musk is going on this. Obviously this is an example where stating that there are 2 sexes has come up as hateful conduct and visibility has been limited. It seems a little more is going on than targeted harassment.

https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1763783532042649888?s=46&t=ZX_bLozRqm8etdGICMcAvA

Another who thinks this rule just refers to intentional and repeated harassment of individuals rather than isolated or general comments. You're fine saying "transwomen are men", or stating that the latest female rapist was actually a male rapist and should be recorded a such. You might run into issues if you repeatedly write "you're a man!" on every single thing an individual transwoman posts, or if you hunt out trans people purely to 'misgender' them - and I would expect the same punishment if someone was similarly attacking GC people with "cis". That's just my feeling though, be interesting to see how it's deployed... I believe Musk's been fairly clear about his position on the trans debate though so I'd be surprised if he u-turns, especially given how furiously he asserts that he will never be cowed. He would look very silly!

Genspect have claimed that they have seemed to be under a shadow ban over the past week. And, we know, that they use male but don’t they use preferred pronouns?

People use social media for very different purposes.

Just because you, personally, don’t use it the it way others do, doesn’t make your way better than any one else’s.

“I genuinely don’t understand why you’d want to go back and forth with something that you view to be foolishness”.

Righto then… it seems interacting with others who have a different view point is not the purpose of MN FWR either. And the implication is that I and others are ‘foolish’ (the very least indulging in foolishness) from someone declaring that using preferred pronouns over correct sex pronouns should be standard.

The dissonance is clanging very loudly here.

Because people might retweet someone who is constantly spreading misinformation more than once or twice….

You might read people’s tweets that you don’t agree with as much as you might read people who you do. It is called developing a wide understanding of what people think and are saying. If you are only reading or interacting with people you agree with, you are not developing any depth of understanding outside of the interpretations of people you agree with.

So, how many times do you interpret Twitter’s new rule being applied for? Just 1 tweet but the person you are interacting with feels you are harassing them? What happens if you have done a thread containing 5 where you have used correct sex pronouns?

I will always discuss that man as a man. So it might not be many tweets, but that man could decide to trawl my Twitter feed and find examples of me calling him a man over a period of time, despite me not actually interacting with him personally, and use that as his example of repeated targeted harassment.

The fact that he's had to go looking for them and trawl through months of tweets to find those examples won't matter to the Twitter staff. They'll just see his little collection of my tweets where I have correctly sexed him, won't check to see that I've got him muted and don't interact with him personally, ignore the fact that those six tweets he found are over a period of months and that I was talking about the horrible things he had said that had insulted hundreds of women. And I will get rewarded with reduced visibility.

It's shutting down my freedom of speech and my ability to describe reality.

You have free will right? Why would you choose to interact and get riled up by people you disagree with/don’t like? I’m sorry but I don’t get that mindset.

I’ve been on Twitter for nearly 15 years now. I follow the people I want to follow and interact with those that I want to interact with. Why would I spend my time on the internet getting frustrated/angered by people I simply don’t agree with? I genuinely don’t understand why you’d want to go back and forth with something that you view to be foolishness. I certainly don’t. Anyway, enjoy your day!😆

“Surely, this wouldn’t impact you as why would you continuously interact with someone who you disagree with or don’t like?”

Gosh… I don’t know what to say actually.

I think you must exist to think that social media platforms are only for ‘social’ activities and have missed how they have become massive information aggregators. Where everyone interacts freely and not just with people they agree with or like in a bubble.

Did Elon Musk not say that the rules are about repeated, targeted harassment of a particular person? So if this man saw your comment and reported it, I don’t see how one singular comment fits the criteria?

It would be great if someone with first hand experience could actually let me know whether they’d face consequences over one comment or not. Guess I’ll wait for the next thread when that’s happened to someone

By saying ‘his’ instead of ‘hers’, or ‘hers’ instead of ‘theirs’. It’s not complicated

Pronoun use and using correct sex for people has gone from being a nice thing for distressed people to feel more comfortable to shutting down conversations many men don’t want women to have.

eg

The women were unhappy as she was changing for the swimming contest alongside them

Versus

The women were unhappy as he was changing for the swimming contest alongside them

Or
The women were unhappy as a man was changing for the swimming contest alongside them

Anything that stops women complaining about why we don’t want men around (pronouns, reference to sex, references to male anatomy) has to be crushed so any complaints seem silly, unfair, irrational and bizarre (any of those accusations seem familiar? Where have we heard those before? And who from?)

This conversation isn’t going to get us anywhere as we have both interpreted the tweet/new rules very differently.

I read it as, constantly and purposely using a different pronoun to the one that the person has asked you to use, will result in reduced visibility of posts. I did not read it as, if you make one comment challenging a person and using their incorrect pronoun by doing so, will result in repercussions. Interacting with someone once and using their incorrect pronoun obviously isn’t the same as doing it constantly and on purpose.

Just so you know, men who claim to be women are really not the only people in the world who want to change their pronouns. I also don’t get why you’d constantly interact with someone you don’t like/don’t agree with to the point where they can report your posts and Twitter will take action. Seems like a hell of a lot of time spent on someone you have no interest in

The thing is though you don't have to interact with the person to fall foul of the new Twitter rules.

There is a man I loathe on Twitter, he's a sexist twat who thinks despite having no GRC he can just use women only spaces as and when he likes. He constantly misrepresents the law and about 80% of the time talks out of his arse.

I don't interact with him, In fact I have him muted so that I don't see his posts at all.

However some people I do follow screenshot some of his more ridiculous pronouncements and if I'm on a thread and someone posts his latest derisory comments on what he thinks women should do in order for him to live out his fantasy and use women as unwitting and unwilling players in his fantasy I might comment on that. I'm not interacting with the knobhead, I'm not searching him out, but I will in my response to someone else correctly sex the man as a man and call him he.

The man I have called a man/he could then see my post and report me for using the wrong pronouns when talking about him.

Am I not even allowed to talk about something connected to that man now?

The 'I have a problem/have caused a problem and it's all your fault for noticing it or not enabling me/daring to criticise me' thing is a very, very frequent flier in this political movement.

Talking back to someone who feels entitled to control you or disadvantage you is not 'harassment' unless your social perceptions are quite significantly distorted.

And yet, reporting of any misuse of pronouns will be reported. So, Twitter x will see no difference really. Because who is going to adjudicate this? The team from the Twitter? We have already seen what happened with that team before. Why would it be any different?

Can you tell us how people pushing back on conflicts where male people’s demands are prioritised over female people’s is anyway like ‘sexist/homophobic’ comments?

Because if you are raising the alarm that an extreme trans activist is spreading misinformation and doing so by quoting their tweet, I would assume that would be considered ‘harassment’. Sure, you can use the cumbersome approach of finding a way to avoid pronouns, but stating the obvious ‘Here is a male declaring he should be included in the UK female team’ is much clearer and accurate than ‘x is declaring she should be included in the UK female team’.

Even ‘Here is a male declaring she should be included in the female team’ leads to obfuscated communication.

Or are people not supposed to counter misinformation on a platform that has become an information sharing resource? They just should let it stand because someone says they don’t need to interact.

It’s not my job to facilitate & endorse people’s fantasies. Men are not women, women are not men, and non binary is just utter bollocks by people who think they’re somehow special when news flash everyone is fucking NB

I can’t believe in tne week when the majority of media outlets reported the murderer SB as a woman and only edited it on the basis of complaints and even then very feebly that the danger of enforced pronoun lying has to be pointed out

Its the same issue as the BBC complaint. You may not mention reality or facts or your own beliefs or perceptions, because a tiny number of people will kick off if not enabled at all times, and demand to control everyone else.

Just no.

There is a difference between targeted harassment and refusing to lie though.

It's a bit like not mentioning your friend is obese. If they ask you directly, that's on them, but we mostly amble along together politely not mentioning things. If someone obese insisted they were skinny and all clothes sizes need to be changed to reflect that they felt they were a size 8 - then we'd be in the realm of TRA debate.

Still, you would find an honest way to discuss it without it becoming a personal attack. I'd want Twitter to stop anyone who answered back with a "you look like a whale" comment, rather than a reasonable point.

I don't really want GCs grouped in with the sexist/homophobic comments that you do see, any move towards better on line etiquette is a good thing, I think.

No one’s asking you to support it. But again, why would you continuously and purposely interact with someone you don’t support? I’m not sure why anyone would be bothered by this unless you’re literally on the internet trolling people

It seems that you’re missing the point. The topic of your current thread is about Elon Musk and the use of incorrect pronouns on Twitter (or X) right?

If someone is repeatedly and purposely using pronouns different to what someone has asked to be referred too, just to piss that person off, why should that be allowed? That’s a completely different situation in comparison to this. ‘Admiral Levine, for example, tweets out about women’s history month and many women have voiced their resentment of a man’s interference in women’s politics.’

It’s also not just men that would like to use certain pronouns. All of the people I know that use different pronouns are non-binary women. It seems as if you’re upset that you’ll face repercussions for purposely using different pronouns to the ones that the person has asked you to use? Surely, this wouldn’t impact you as why would you continuously interact with someone who you disagree with or don’t like?