Elon Musk and new pronoun rules on Twitter

[PriOn1]

It seems that people on Twitter face being penalized again for correctly sexing people and using their original names.

The new rules were quietly introduced, and Musk originally said he was “looking into it.”

Now it seems he has caved, defensively claiming that it’s only for “repeated, targeted harassment”.

So much for free speech. I guess now he’s taken a load of money from people in return for a blue tick, extra words and increased visibility, he has decided to shaft them all again. Bizarre behaviour.

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

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?)

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

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

“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.

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!😆

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.

I’m not missing the point.

If women repeatedly interact with Levine, pointing out his sex, then presumably those women can be censured if Levine complains.

I would choose not to interact in a negative way to your friends, as I choose not to denigrate my daughter’s friends who choose to use different pronouns.

But you cannot make a blanket rule that fairly allows women to object to men who are politicizing their cross dressing activities while preventing anyone from correctly sexing your female friends. And honestly, if they are so fragile that they cannot hear the truth without it causing them distress, then perhaps Twitter isn’t the best place for them to advertise their beliefs.

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?

My guess is that Twitter won’t tell you. They’ll just adjust either your post or your entire account to make it less visible.

They are already doing this to people like GLinner and LaScapigliata, both of whom have “May have sensitive content” slapped across every image or GIF they share, despite having paid for the privilege.

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.

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?

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!

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

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.

Bliddy hell!

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

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".

Can you really not see a difference in those two things? I can see a huge, glaring difference.

But 'address' means to speak directly to that person. In which case the correct pronoun would always be 'you'. Not a third person pronoun like he/her.

Third person pronouns are used to speak about someone, not to them.

Words matter.

Anyway, if people can choose their pronouns, can I choose my adjectives? I'm going to demand to be referred to as 'excellent/glorious/wonderful'. If you refuse to use then you're just mean and unkind.

If you think that's daft, ask yourself how it's different?

But . . haven't you been doing just that in your posts on this thread?

Wimmin- you're so silly getting upset about this! Why bother with things that don't concern you? You shouldn't bother your pretty little heads about it!I certainly don't!

Well, that's us told 🙄

For someone who doesn't bother with things that don't concern them, you're certainly making a lot of effort on here...

I never said pushing back on conflicts prioritising men was sexist or homophobic - never - I said these comments do exist and it is in everyone's interests for reasonable, polite GC comments to be separate from them in the general consensus.

The same way you can say "childhood obesity has increased and this comes with a risk to their health," but you can't say "Yo fatty, gonna die from eating all the pies," to a child. It isn't helping us to be grouped in with the people who say things like "god makes men and women, not Adam and Steve," or just comment on appearance in a nasty way.

The twitter team is a new one, I think, and the comment is worded in terms of abusive language, so lets give it a chance to see if we can reach a place where we are heard separately from those that the American left has force-teamed us with (their right).

You can push back in reasonable ways, keeping to the topic rather than the individual, using neutral pronouns or names. You don't have to actively validate someone to avoid using the wrong sex pronoun. I would avoid that because that will always be the end of the discussion and cue outrage and boring-ness. Twitter is odd anyway as you are not actually seeing the person, it's often just a cartoon, so neutral pronoun are the default.

yeah. Sadly if women had gone 'well we're not bothering with that', the lobby would have been able to steam roller our rights in peace and quiet.

Would I love to be able to not be permanently angry, upset and disgusted by all this awful behaviour and bullshit? Oh God yes.

Do I have better things to do with my life? Definitely.

But until the boundaries are put firmly around this political movement to stop it trampling over everyone else and doing further serious harm on top of what they've already managed? I'm kind of stuck, and so are most other people who manage to care about women and children, and things that affect everyone and ensure equality for everyone, instead of just bothering to get involved in what personally impinges on them and their own best interests. I think there was a word for it. Social something. Socialism possibly.

Up Terf Island, where enough women did give a shit about other people as well as themselves, and have put in the time, effort, energy and actions to wreck the tyres on the steam roller.

Already Genspect has highlighted that this has happened to them.

https://x.com/genspect/status/1763650810372620739?s=46&t=HTxp6zC_d4GZ2FFv4a-YeQ

I highlighted how this could be easily used to abuse reasonable feminist campaigners in a sporting example up thread. While you are right about direct abuse such as calling someone ‘fatty’, I disagree that it will only be applied in that way. And if Genspect is correct, then it has already started.

That was my exact thought. A poster arguing against a specific point on a forum asking why on earth others would engage online with people of differing views

It’s not interacting with them though. You’d refer to them using second person pronouns - you.

If it’s a they dared to use he instead of she issue, they were talking about you not interacting with you. And frankly it IS all about control.

Insisting it’s about politeness is disingenuous. No one has to be polite about you. They should probably be polite to you. But trying to control how they talk about you is just being controlling.