The Twitter Exile – The American Spectator

Elon Musk let me down. I doubt this would much bother him while running the world’s biggest seller of electric vehicles, building rockets to Mars, maintaining a $300-billion fortune, and saving freedom of speech, for which I named him one of the Heroes of 2022 in this magazine. But saving free speech turned out to be easier than protecting it from the leftist forces determined to quash it — as mine was by the woke parasites inside Twitter. (READ MORE: Tear Down the Social Media Bastille)

Last Thursday, the social media titan suspended me for “hateful content” — a theoretically high bar to reach on the free speech site. Although supposedly for 12 hours, a technical snag has prolonged my suspension with no end in sight. This banishment has deprived me as a journalist of vital news sources and curtailed my ability to be one, let alone promote my novels. I can’t even access pertinent Twitter quotes for this article. What intolerant, incendiary comment did I post to merit such a punishment? To put it in proper perspective, I must first describe the two historical threads that led to it. (RELATED: The Woke Choice Is Always the Wrong Choice)

Liberal wailing to the contrary, June 1, 2023 was a far more important date for America than January 6, 2021. This was the night the Daily Wire had contracted with Twitter to screen Matt Walsh’s transgender-demolishing documentary, What Is a Woman? (and mock the start of Pride Month). After signing the contract, according to Daily Wire CEO Jeremy Boreing, Twitter management asked to preview the movie to see if any parts would “trigger” users. Just hours before showtime, Twitter terminated the agreement, stating it would limit the documentary’s exposure and label it “hateful conduct” because of incidents of “misgendering.”

I watched the Daily Wire live feed of Boreing, co-CEO Ben Shapiro, Walsh, and producer Dallas Sonnier in total crisis mode. “They gave us the opportunity to edit the film to comply,” Boreing said. “We declined.” The four men chose to stick to their end of the deal and present the film on schedule, come what might. Switching to Twitter, I saw the film start then the screen go dark. The last, best hope for free speech — and any criticism of transgenderism — had come down to the decision of one man, at that moment incommunicado in China.

Glimmers of hope began appearing the same night with initially subtle tweets from Musk. “This was a mistake by many people at Twitter,” he tweeted. “It is definitely allowed. Whether or not you agree with using someone’s preferred pronouns, not doing so is at most rude and certainly breaks no laws.” The movie began again and ran to its conclusion, ultimately garnering 100 million views.

Twitter’s head of trust and safety, Ella Irwin, and two other Twitter watchdogs suddenly quit, or more likely got fired. So vital to them was silencing anti-transgender speech, that they had risked their careers to censor it, and lost. But, as I later painfully found out, enough of their ilk remained at Twitter. In any case, the next morning, Musk made his position clear regarding What Is a Woman?: “Every parent should watch this,” he tweeted.

Meanwhile, across the Pond, the brilliant actor, Laurence Fox, had sacrificed his beloved career and family legacy standing up for the magnificent British tradition, under similar attack from progressive fascists. The son of James Fox (A Passage to India) and nephew of Edward Fox (The Day of the Jackal) was the best thing in the BBC detective series, Inspector Lewis, playing DS James Hathaway. His success abruptly ended three years ago on the UK talk show Question Time, when Fox dismissed an audience member’s claim that racism wounded Meghan Markle. “We are the most tolerant, lovely country in Europe,” Laurence said. In the standard woke feeding frenzy, his manager and agent dropped him like hot coal.

Fox subsequently founded and leads the political Reclaim Party, dedicated to preserving traditional British values in a country apparently hellbent on discarding them. His conservative stance has made him the target of the usual leftist opprobrium, most threateningly from transgender activists. Last Thursday, Fox tweeted, “Came out this morning to find this (item unseen) varnished/superglued to the pavement. My family home has been marked by the child-mutilation cult.”

To which I supportively replied last Thursday morning, “‘Child mutilation cult’ should be the reflexive redefinition of transgender.” In an hour, I had almost 90 likes, and numerous positive comments, though I did notice two with the word, “reported.” I paid them little heed following the What Is a Woman? free speech victory. When I checked into Twitter a short time later, the site said I was suspended for 12 hours for “hateful conduct.” (READ MORE: They Don’t Want You to Watch What Is a Woman?)

So, I thought, according to some Twitter underling, it is still hateful conduct to call out the transgender movement for what it demands and not for the demand itself — that little children, incapable of sound reasoning, be permanently altered and dismembered in pursuit of an adult Frankensteinian fantasy. Transgender operations cannot make people members of the opposite sex, merely grotesque nonfunctional facsimiles of them. And innocent kids can’t agree to have them with any concept of the misery it will bring them in future.

Yet I got censored while Democratic and leftist leaders hail such butchery using the Orwellian term, “gender-affirmation care.” And the increasingly ridiculous Assistant Secretary for Health, Rachel (Richard) Levine can go on ABC’s Nightline and actually say, “What if you’re going through the wrong puberty?” I suppose hateful conduct also applies to the Louisiana legislators who last week voted 75-23 to override Governor John Bel Edwards’ veto of a ban on “gender-reassignment” surgery on minors.

Finally, I ran into a technical roadblock. The 12-hour countdown to Twitter unsuspension can only start after you verify your email to the account. When I tried, I was told that “your email address is registered to another account.” Since I only have one email-address — probably hacked — and one Twitter account, there is nothing else I can do to reactivate, and no one to alert.

So, unless my great followers can pressure the powers at Twitter to reinstate me as per their own rules, my voice will be silenced. It may not be as powerful as the Daily Wire’s, but it’s just as hated by the censorious elements. I’m mad they got away with it this long. I would go to Zuckerberg’s Threads, but I’d last about ten minutes there before getting banned. Twitter is the last best hope for free speech. And I’m sorry mine’s not on it.