Twitter sparked backlash this week after some users noticed it had quietly removed language in its hateful conduct policy that explicitly protected transgender people from online harassment.
The social media platform had prohibited the targeted misgendering or deadnaming of transgender people since 2018.
Some online noticed this month that the sentence had been plucked from Twitter’s section on slurs and tropes, while all other descriptions of policy violations remained intact.
Archives captured by the Wayback Machine showed the previous version still existed April 7, the day Twitter announced it had updated its abuse and harassment policy to redefine “targeted harassment.”
Regardless, she said, removing explicit language against targeting transgender users strips away the deterrent effect of having the policy in writing, even if the rules were to remain in place.
Twitter also updated its list of consequences for users who break the rules.
Twitter announced Monday it will begin labeling such tweets with a content warning: “Visibility limited: this Tweet may violate Twitter’s rules against Hateful Conduct.”. »
