Twitter deletes tweets about Trans Day of Vengeance protest

Twitter has removed thousands of tweets about a “Trans Day of Vengeance” protest scheduled for Saturday in the US Supreme Court, sparking outrage among conservatives, who also shared the event poster to condemn the demonstration.

Ella Irwin, head of trust and safety at Twitter, said in a tweet Wednesday that the company automatically removed more than 5,000 tweets and retweets of a poster promoting the event.

“We do not support tweets that incite violence, regardless of who posts them. “Revenge” does not imply peaceful protest. It’s okay to organize or support peaceful protests,” Irwin wrote.

The crackdown came just days after Audrey Hale, who police have identified as transgender, carried out a mass shooting at Nashville’s Covenant School that killed three 9-year-old students and three adults before she was shot dead by police officers.

In scrubbing the tweets, Twitter said it used automated processes to do it quickly and at scale, without considering the context in which the tweets were shared.

Many right-wing users attacked the platform for using this crude approach and unfairly applying the rules to them, arguing that they were merely retweeting the flyer to denounce the upcoming demonstration.

Meanwhile, trans activists were quick to point out that “Trans Day of Vengeance” is a meme that has been around for years and is not an incitement to violence.

Evan Greer, director of nonprofit left-wing advocacy group Fight for the Future, said Twitter’s actions are “the latest example of big tech companies using double standards when it comes to content moderation.”

“It’s slow-to-moderate content aimed at trans people, but quickly silences us if we speak up or push back,” she said.

Greer also pointed out that “Trans Day of Vengeance” is a meme that has long been used by the trans community to express “anger and frustration at the oppression and violence” its members face every day.

“Context is everything when it comes to moderation of content, so content policies should be based on human rights and applied evenly and not quickly changed due to public pressure or news cycles,” she added.

Many of the tweets deleted from Twitter came from conservative users who suggested there was a possible connection between the planned Washington, DC rallies and the Nashville shooting

But the Trans Radical Activist Network (TRAN), the group that hosted Saturday’s protest outside the US Supreme Court, said it does not condone violence. In a statement, organizers said the event was planned before the school shooting.

“Revenge means fighting back with vehemence,” the protest organizers wrote on their website. “We fight against false narratives, criminalization and annihilation of our existence.”

Earlier this month, Twitter introduced a new policy banning “violent speech,” including “coded language” or so-called “dog whistles” used to indirectly incite violence.

With mail wires