Corinna Cohn @corrinna_cohn
Twitter revised its terms of service to ban “deadnaming”. I am trans and this is a thread on what “deadnaming” is.
On its face, “deadnaming” is merely mentioning the christened name of a person as given by their parents if that person has subsequently changed their name as part of declaring a different gender identity.
It’s considered rude to approach a trans person who would prefer to be known as Caitlyn and say to them, “Hey, Bruce!” Recently (last five years) this was coined as “deadnaming”.
With Twitter choosing to punish or ban the mention of a chistened name, “deadnaming” has now emerged as a highly privileged, extremely broad privacy right which removes others’ rights to speak about the past.
From the first time I heard the malapropism “deadnaming”, I’ve criticized it for promoting the idea that changing one’s name or pronouns is a form of death. It is’t. Changing your name introduces a new chapter; it doesn’t destroy the book.
There is not a unified position in the trans community on “deadnaming”. For Twitter to add it to its prohibited speech restrictions, it means that Twitter has taken a specific, ideological stance and is choosing to ban a wide swath of speech.
A ban on “deadnaming” is categorically identical to a ban on heresy. If Twitter bans “deadnaming”, there is no distance from here to banning sacriligious speech. “Deadnaming” is a term from the most modern of theological movements.
in practice, Twitter’s “deadnaming” policy will be a boon to anyone who wants to hide their past, particularly sex offenders and other violent offenders. This policy strips a victim’s ability to name their abuser.
(As a side note, a former senior engineer at Twitter is now protected by this policy)
Twitter has been cracking down on all types of challenging speech. Challenging speech is by its nature offensive because it attacks ideas or beliefs that one party sincerely holds and which another party passionately disagrees.
Twitter is not a platform for discussing ideas. This new change to the terms and conditions proves that beyond a doubt. #FreeMeghan
The interaction and replies to this thread are well worth reading too.
Just as Facebook's achilles heel is proving to be fake news and various data leaks and user profiling scandals, which has resulted in the loss of millions of users, I'll put money on this ending up being twitters.
Right now they are taking the gamble on which users are most valuable to them. In this case, gender critical woman are the greatest losers but its not just gcw who lose. It affects the credibility of twitter and will have a ripple effect. (Ironically MN has made something of a similar financial calculation the same but the outcome is rather different because of the nature of the user base. It's quite a striking contrast)
Twitters decision here, and it's opaque and highly dubious reporting system and decision making process over what it censors and what it doesn't, will become the story itself.
No one may give a shit about GCW. They will give a shit, as this will not be where it ends. Free speech itself is something Americans are fiercely defensive of. Whilst twitter is clearly trying to project a Liberal identity, it's illiberalism will bother many.
We shall see how this pans out, but the story isn't about deadnaming nor Meghan. It's much much bigger than that.