Graham Norton has terminated his Twitter account after attacking JK Rowling

[SwanageBay]

Well that's one less beardy man on there defending rape and death threats.

they sure act like they believe that or want other people to believe that she does anyway.

And JKR certainly seems to believe that he supports the rape and murder of women and wants other people to believe it, she tweeted it.

The anti-JKR people shouldn't tweet accusations and JKR shouldn't tweet accusations. If people would stop assuming/putting words in others mouths then conversations and debates would be a whole lot easier. It's wrong for anyone to do it, JKR included.

What about women who aren't worried about safeguarding issues? Don't they count?

Please redefine my categorisation as you see fit.

I am entirely gender critical and I love JKR.

But there is something about the Twitter discourse I feel uneasy about. I didn't really think the Nicola Sturgeon t-shirt photo was in anyone's best interest, despite agreeing entirely with it.

I think it's all become a bit messy in recent months.

Thanks.

No, not the rape and murder of women, but ‘threats’ to rape and murder women.

Much of the response on twitter was him equating cancellation with accountability. People were pointing out that discrimination against Maya Forstater and Allison Bailey was cancellation not accountability. Nottingham Council cancelling a talk by Julie Bindel was cancellation not accountability. The treatment of Kathleen Stock was cancellation not accountability.

Is all the material on Terfisaslur really accountability? Are the numerous death threats on twitter against JKR really accountability?

He absolutely minimised the experience of women who have been on the receiving end of this sort of treatment.

Graham Linehan made the point that the Father Ted musical has been cancelled due to GL's GC stance when GN actually starred in Father Ted so is fully aware of what has happened.

I totally AGREE WITH YOU … ok so it’s a democracy and free speech prevails … BUT DOES IT? So it’s an American based platform dominated by various political groupings and they get nasty and opinionated about issues they’re trying to control - BUT WHEN You get the President of the United States of America (speaking on Sunday from an Oregon ice cream parlour) criticising and interfering in British domestic economic policy … you begin to wonder whether there are other U.S. social platforms we should be distancing ourselves from too? AND THEN POST BREXIT … you realise they’re against giving us a free trade agreement - SO WHY ARE THEY OCCUPYING OUR Airbases, like RAF Croughton … if they (and their Democrat President) dislike Britain and British people so much? #rafcroughton

So slightly less bad, but still very bad. Point stands, no one should be accusing anyone of something they didn't say, no matter who it is and that includes JKR, she doesn't get a pass just because she's JKR.

Haven't read all the posts but my twopenn'orth -
Man believes in free speech but also accountability and consequences. This is then demonstrated by people holding him accountable for said free speech and the consequence is that he flees from Twitter.

Wasn't this how he thought it should work?

Norton's comments were perfectly sensible and he is entitled to his opinion. He is correct to say celebrities aren't experts and their voices get artificially inflated for clicks. It's clear nothing short of fawning endorsement would be good enough for some people here, but he clearly didn't endorse death threats and JKR made herself look silly by implying he did.

All Norton was asked was to state precisely which views JKR held were problematic. He didn't. He refused to do so. He still hasn't. So he was the one throwing shit. You can stop with the 'both sides' bull.

What I can't get my head round is how GN thinks that the experts on women's rights are trans people.

Unless he doesn't understand what this is all about?

At worst, as a PP pointed out, his remarks could be taken to mean that women's voices shouldn't be listened to in the conversation around trans people, but given the context - i.e. talking about famous people being piled on for opinions - he was evidently talking about her level of fame and power, rather than her being a woman, because he also says "My voice [i.e. as an also famous person] adds nothing to that discussion" and says that being on TV/famous 'artificially amplifies' his voice. It's very clear that he's discussing the idea of fame adding weight to people's opinions, NOT that she shouldn't have an opinion because she's a woman.

And why does her fame mean that she should not discuss women's and girl's needs?

She has also written in the Times on the weekend, that because of her work with women's and children's charities, she also knows quite a lot about safeguarding. She certainly has a great deal of knowledge about the needs of women and children.

So, please clarify why her voice should not be amplified? His? No. I agree. His shouldn't. But hers?

Or because she is considered a 'celebrity' she should not share the opinions you have said in your post that she can have?

It was describing cancellation as accountability that was the problem. The death threats against JKR should be seen as cancellation. Does he really think that the death threats she has received for her GC views are an example of accountability?

If you support cancel culture, you support mob rule.
If you think mob rule is ‘accountability’ you imply that believe that mob rule is an correct and proportional arbiter and mechanism for justice.

In the old days, accountability used to mean being held accountable for your actions, which would imply that your actions would be known and understood.

• that you

JKR is still a best selling billionaire author with an international public platform, and her views are published by national newspapers. She has in no way been "cancelled" in any meaningful sense of the word. Death threats are not okay, but people are entitled to disagree with her and say so. That isn't cancellation.

This is absolutely right. Either they think what is happening to JKR (rape and death threats) is accountability or (more likely) they have no idea what cancel culture for women with GC beliefs actually looks like. That is the point JKR is making.

According to the transcript earlier in the thread he said:
talk to trans people, talk to the parents of trans kids, talk to the doctors, talk to someone who can illuminate this in some way’.

No mention of 'experts'. 'Doctors' could include the disgraced, suspended and struck off Webberleys. Or GPs who know next to nothing about this.

'Someone who can illuminate this in some way' includes people like JKR and all the other women who are concerned.

Is there any evidence that trans people in general and all the parents of so-called 'trans kids' know what they're talking about? Is Susie Green an 'expert' because she took her child to the US for puberty blockers and then to Thailand for surgery (when underage for that surgery in the UK)? Parents of so-called 'trans kids' aren't experts - many of them are people who are now trying to justify the appalling treatment that they have inflicted on their children while they were too young to understand what was being done to them.

She can’t be ‘cancelled’ though can she? She is an extremely rare woman who is too powerful to be cancelled, so she is punished instead. And every attempt to cancel her is being attempted, the authoritarians are trying their best aren’t they?

Why do you think people are sending death and rape threats to women with who express opinions? To hold them accountable or to try and shut them up?

Hold them accountable would involve reasoned argument and a proportionate response. Death threats are not an attempt at accountability but instead active attempts at intimidation.

I agree with you. As I believe Norton put it, free speech doesn't mean free speech without consequence.

She has in no way been "cancelled" in any meaningful sense of the word.

She hasn't, but not from want of trying.

Plenty of other people have however lost jobs, livelihoods, opportunities, been dropped by publishers, deplatformed. But she's not allowed to point that out when GN blithely denies it?