Twitter erased thousands of tweets about Trans Day of Vengeance over concerns about violence, which annoyed radical transgender activists and conservatives.
Some of the flagged tweets were warnings about the Saturday protest posted by well-known figures on the right such as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Georgia Republican, and Portland journalist Andy Ngo.
“Twitter should be a platform where independent journalism can thrive,” tweeted Mr. Ngo, known for his critical coverage of Antifa. “But for reporting on & posting evidence of extremist organizing on Twitter, I was forced to delete the news posts, or remain locked off the platform.”
Tucker Carlson, Fox News Channel host, accused Twitter during Wednesday night’s show of “deliberately silencing reporting on this day of vengeance.”
Ella Irwin, Twitter’s chief of trust and safety, defended the decision to block automatically more than 5,000 tweets and retweets of the Trans Radical Activist Network’s poster advertising the Saturday protest outside the Supreme Court.
“We do not support tweets that incite violence irrespective of who posts them,” she said in a Tuesday tweet. “‘Vengeance’ does not imply peaceful protest. Organizing or support for peaceful protests is ok.”
She acknowledged that there is “a valid debate about whether we should/ shouldn’t remove incitement related media.”
Ms. Irwin wrote in a Wednesday follow-up thread, “Many different users believe their tweet should be allowed, including the original creator of the media. We have biased toward not allowing Twitter to be used to incite violence.”
Ella Irwin, Twitter Trust and Safety for some but not for others? https://t.co/2E4PULaSTL</ p>— Stooge Report (brain cells matter) (@stooge_report) March 30, 2023
The timing is particularly fraught, given the Monday massacre at a Nashville Christian school that left six dead, including three 9-year-olds, by a female shooter who identified as male. The suspect, 28-year-old Audrey Hale, was shot and killed by police.
The Trans Radical Activist Network, which organized the Saturday rally, said it was “horrified” by the shooting and insisted that “vengeance” in this case doesn’t mean violence.
“Vengeance means fighting back with vehemence,” said the network on its website. “We are fighting against false narratives, criminalization and eradication of our existence.”
