Elon Musk is a believer of absolute free speech and since his takeover of Twitter, there has been a surge of hate speech on the platform. Reuters
Billionaire Elon Musk bought Twitter in October last year. Since then the social media platform has been seeing tremendous change — payment for verified ticks, mass firings and much more. Amid this massive churn, Twitter has quietly updated its “hateful conduct policy” to remove protections for trans users.
On 8 April, users noticed an update to Twitter’s abuse and harassment policy in which the platform without directly referencing to it, rolled back established protections against misgendering and deadnaming trans users.
The policy, initially introduced in 2018, read: We prohibit targeting others with repeated slurs, tropes or other content that intends to dehumanise, degrade or reinforce negative or harmful stereotypes about a protected category. This includes targeted misgendering or deadnaming of transgender individuals.”
The sentence on transgender individuals is now gone.
On Monday, Twitter also announced that it will only put warning labels on some tweets that might violate its rules against hateful conduct. Earlier, the tweets were removed from the platform.
Here’s a closer look at this practice of deadnaming, how it affects transgender people and why its removal has activists up in arms.
What is deadnaming and is it harmful?
A deadname is essentially the name that a transgender person was given at birth and no longer uses upon transitioning. Take the case of Bruce Jenner, the former Olympian and stepfather and father to the Kardashian family. After transitioning, she took on the name Caitlyn Jenner. However, if someone now refers to her as Bruce that is deadnaming.
Deadnaming occurs when someone, intentionally or not, refers to a person who’s transgender by the name they used before they transitioned. You may also hear it described as referring to someone by their “birth name” or their “given name.”
Also read: The outrage over Nike, US beer Bud Light’s collab with trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney
Child and adolescent psychiatrist Jason Lambrese, MD, has explained that deadnaming isn’t always malicious. Sometimes, it takes time for a person to get used to referring to a friend or family member by a new name. “Sometimes, people are trying to catch up but they’re struggling. For family members who have known somebody by one name for so many years, it’s challenging to switch that over immediately because our brains automatically associate a name and a pronoun with a person. So, we don’t have to think about what someone’s name is because it comes to us automatically,” Lambrese is quoted as saying.
But in other cases, deadnaming comes from a malicious place and can be harmful to a trans person.
Deadnaming could give a transgender person the impression that you don’t respect them. It can also be a very stressful and traumatic experience. Medical News Today reports that deadnaming is harmful because refusing to use a person’s chosen name or pronouns is a form of transphobia. This can contribute to mental health conditions, such as depression and suicidality. It can also lead to physical and verbal assault and abuse.
The Center for Countering Digital Hate has found that abuse against gay men and trans persons has increased 58 per cent and 62 per cent on Twitter. Reuters
Twitter unsafe for trans persons?
Twitter in 2018 had introduced rules against misgendering and deadnaming as a way to protect transpersons.
However, under Elon Musk’s charge this rule has now been removed, making trans persons more vulnerable to abuse and hate on the platform. The move was spotted by the non-profit organisation Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) and has criticised it.
“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, president and CEO of GLAAD, in a press release.
“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,” she added.
Twitter’s move is, however, not too surprising. It’s in line with self-styled chief twit Elon Musk’s broader efforts to promote ‘free speech’ on Twitter. Musk himself has promoted transphobic narratives on the platform. In July 2020, Musk tweeted “Pronouns suck,” and later that year tweeted a meme mocking pronouns.
In December last year, he engaged in a Twitter spat with astronaut Scott Kelly over pronouns, writing: “My pronouns are Prosecute/Fauci.” Kelly denounced the tweet as harming a marginalised community.
One of Musk’s daughters, who is trans, has reportedly severed ties with him.
Many users and activists have noted that Twitter has increasingly become more hateful under Musk’s charge. The Center for Countering Digital Hate has found that abuse against gay men and trans persons increased 58 per cent and 62 per cent in the previous year.
However, Musk denies this claim and in a recent BBC interview said that Twitter has not witnessed a rise in hate speech. He, in fact, accused the BBC reporter of lying. “You don’t know what you’re talking about… you just lied,” Musk said.
But, as they say, data doesn’t lie and the proof is in the numbers itself.
With inputs from agencies
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