When defamed billionaire Elon Musk took over X (formerly Twitter), in what can easily be called the most embarrassing loss of power, he seemed to have made it his life’s mission to make the once popular space for humorous as well as socio-political discourse, a cesspool for American right-wing blasphemy.
One of his biggest agendas was to make anti-trans rhetoric of deadnaming and misgendering people the norm. This was done by changing X’s policy to allow for these practices to go unnoticed and the users who practice them to go un-penalized for their behaviors.
Also read: What’s in a (Dead)Name? Quite a lot, Actually! How to Support when Someone Changes their Name!
But now the social media giant has backtracked on this, very quietly might we add, and it’s all thanks to a Brazilian court ruling.
Under their ‘Abuse and Harassment’ policy a new section called “Use of Prior Names and Pronouns” earlier stated:
“We will reduce the visibility of posts that purposefully use different pronouns to address someone other than what that person uses for themselves, or that use a previous name that someone no longer goes by as part of their transition. Given the complexity of determining whether such a violation has occurred, we must always hear from the target to determine if a violation has occurred.”
To then state:
“Where required by local laws, we will reduce the visibility of posts that purposefully use different pronouns to address someone other than what that person uses for themselves, or that use a previous name that someone no longer goes by as part of their transition. Given the complexity of determining whether such a violation has occurred, we must always hear from the target to determine if a violation has occurred.”
The addition of those 5 words makes it clear that X will only reduce the visibility of these anti-trans posts if the law of a particular country requires it. This policy will not protect users outside of those countries.
Speaking to Ars Technica, GLAAD’s senior director of social media safety, Jenni Olson, pointed out that specific policies protecting trans people are really important for online safety. “This is not about accidentally getting someone’s pronouns wrong,” Olson told Ars. “That’s fine. That happens. This is about targeted misgendering and deadnaming with a clear intent of expressing hate and disrespect and contempt.”
All though these new policy changes seem to be applicable only in certain parts of the world, it is still nice to see laws being made to stop the spread of hate speech against trans persons through deadnaming and misgendering.
