Twitter Slaps MTG Tweet About Transgender Biden Official With ‘Hateful Conduct’ Label

Twitter is a weird place. You probably already knew that, but it’s just such an odd company that applies its rules and punishments for users so unevenly that if it were a battlefield, the best mine-sweeper would have…

Bradley CortrightJul 19, 20223 min read

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Rules about hateful conduct. However,

Twitter

has determined that it may be in the public’s interest for the Tweet to remain accessible.”

This isn’t really the kind of language or behavior that a decent amount of Americans would like to see from their elected officials. And to many, especially those who are on Twitter, it is probably seen as offensive. Others, on the other hand, are probably laughing their behinds off.

But from a purely free speech angle, there’s nothing wrong with Twitter’s response to the tweet. In fact, it is an OK response.

It didn’t take the tweet down. It didn’t, as of Tuesday morning, suspend Greene’s account. It left the tweet up — presumably — so people could see Greene’s behavior.

However, it did not sit well with the Congresswoman who tweeted, “Twitter says this tweet violated rules about hateful conduct. I can’t imagine anything more hateful than promoting ‘gender reassignment’ surgeries for children.”

The treatment she received is vastly different than what happened to the Christian satirical site The Babylon Bee in March after it sent a tweet mocking USA Today’s decision to name Levine the “Woman of the Year.”

The Bee’s tweet labeled Levine the “Man Of The Year.” Twitter reportedly gave the account, which has 1.5 million followers but has not tweeted since March, the opportunity to tweet again if it deleted the offending comment. However, Seth Dillion, the CEO of the Bee, said he would not take it down.

So repeat Twitter-offender and quasi-perma-banned Marjorie Taylor Greene is allowed to tweet from an alternative account, but the Bee, which is a satirical site that’s supposed to be slightly transgressive, is still locked out.

That’s not to say Twitter should go and suspend Greene’s other account. It can if it wants, but she should be allowed to act as she does so people can determine if that’s who they want representing them.

However, surely most average Twitter users would prefer it if there was some kind of obvious standard that they know is a line they cannot cross without being suspended or banned. And it would help if the rules were evenly applied to users too.