Twitter removes policy against deadnaming and misgendering transgender people

[DerekFaker]

He's gone and done it, the mad lad 😮

https://apnews.com/article/twitter-elon-musk-transgender-deadnaming-hateful-conduct-ae1b7285bb906e04b26ff9751ec0c2ce?utm_campaign=TrueAnthem&utm_medium=AP&utm_source=Twitter

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Twitter has quietly removed a policy against the “targeted misgendering or deadnaming of transgender individuals,” raising concerns that the Elon Musk-owned platform is becoming less safe for marginalized groups.

Twitter enacted the policy against deadnaming, or using a transgender person’s name before they transitioned, as well as purposefully using the wrong gender for someone as a form of harassment, in 2018.

On Monday, Twitter also said it will only put warning labels on some tweets that are “potentially” in violation of its rules against hateful conduct. Previously, the tweets were removed.

It was in this policy update that Twitter appears to have deleted the line against deadnaming from its rules.

“Twitter’s decision to covertly roll back its longtime policy is the latest example of just how unsafe the company is for users and advertisers alike,” said Sarah Kate Ellis, the president and CEO of the advocacy group GLAAD. “This decision to roll back LGBTQ safety pulls Twitter even more out of step with TikTok, Pinterest, and Meta, which all maintain similar policies to protect their transgender users at a time when anti-transgender rhetoric online is leading to real world discrimination and violence.”

Twitter did immediately respond to a message for comment Tuesday.

Absolutely, @RoyalCorgi .I so hope that this report is true! There are some truly vicious men on Twitter that I will soon be referring to with their correctly sexed pronouns, if it is true.

You know what will seem even less feminist to you. I have begun to find Elon increasingly sexually attractive!

Put that in your pipe and smoke it!

I generally use the names people have chosen, it’s respectful and entirely their choice. I don’t believe there are such things as ‘women’s names’ or ‘men’s names’

I don’t go around calling Marilyn Manson Brian Warner for example

but I do use the correct pronouns and I don’t pretend that people are a different sex to the one they actually are

I also don’t think people come to any great harm by others knowing the name they were given at birth

I think you can support more reasonable moderation policies that don’t treat using correctly sexed pronouns as a hate crime without stanning for a man who told black employees to grow a thicker skin about the n-word and other racial slurs and racist graffiti and whose factories have widespread sexual harassment.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/economy/california-sues-tesla-for-alleged-discrimination-racial-slurs-at-plant

Ah, a person who will NEVER suffer this form of discrimination telling others to stop going on about it

👍 nice work Elon

The Elon Musk show on BBC I player shows him to be a complex, unusual and interesting character; and being autistic he does not have the filters that most do.

I have totally missed this ! , can you please give me a brief summary of what happened, or post a link?

@jeffgoldblum you can probably find it on YouTube - I'd suggest watching the unedited version!

The reporter whinged about terrible things on twitter, and when Musk very reasonably asked for an example, the reporter couldn't give a single one. And then said he hadn't used twitter for months (which was a total lie as he'd posted the previous day). Musk came across very reasonably indeed, but the BBC reporter made a total fool of himself.

https://twitter.com/search?q=elon%20musk%20liar%20bbc&src=typed_query

Excellent.

Many thanks @Downwithitall and @Wanderingowl , absolutely excellent 👌

I've no issue using someone's chosen name (unless it's really offensive ie using a term that just isn't acceptable) but I'm not going to be forced to call a person who raped using his penis "her". Anywhere. I refuse.
Not on twitter but I applaud the return to reality.

https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/04/12/elon-musk-vs-the-bbc/

I'm not hugely in favour of rubbing people's faces in things that upset them. I am in favour of equal handedness.

Either it's the Wild West, or it isn't. We can't be protecting some and not everyone.

I have trouble believing they've really ever attempted to keep people "safe"

I agree completely

Cracking article

THIS.

My pronouns are sex based. I don't believe in gender.

I have trouble believing they've really ever attempted to keep people "safe"

Oh absolutely. Loads of racism, antisemitism, disgusting porn and violent threats have been allowed to stand. Moderation has been mostly ideology driven.

Now TRAS are finding out what a bubble they have been in on twitter. And not before time!

Shouldn't it be treated the same way any other beliefs are on twitter?

So you don't have to use language which supports other people's beliefs, you can criticise and even ridicule other people's beliefs.

They can choose to ignore and not engage with you.

You can't harass people (unprovoked sustained provocation) or threaten people.

You also can't control how other people talk about you. They may refer to a name you used to use, they may make up a new unflattering nicknames for you, those people are not being polite and you can file them under 'idiots' and ignore them.
But you can't censor them just because you don't like it.

Trans people should not be a special class on this.

I have seen suggestions there should be 2 versions of Twitter.
One the wild west anything goes.
The other heavily moderated.

You make your choice.

It would be interesting to see how that played out.

Which would you choose?

I'd be wild west every time.

I am pleased that women who men have assaulted/raped can now honestly refer to the correct sex and name of their rapist - Ditto trans widows.

Good. We could use a bit more reality.

It's about compulsion, really. Should people be forced to address/refer to someone by their chosen name? I don't see why they should. I don't buy the idea that it is immensely distressing and upsetting to trans people to be addressed by their birth name, nor that it is injurious to their mental health.

I also think that the principle that people should be forced to use individuals' chosen name, at pain of being thrown off Twitter, is authoritarian and illiberal. It also, inadvertently or not, benefits those who have something to hide - Isla Bryson and Karen White being two examples amongst many.

It’s crass to insist on using the wrong name for someone because you know better than them what their name should be

but being a dick shouldn’t be against the rules. The crime is already the punishment