On Thursday, Twitter suspended the account of British Christian rapper Zuby after he used the word “dude” to refer to a male identifying as a woman. He was suspended for supposedly violating Twitter’s rules against “hateful conduct.” Yet Twitter initially refused to suspend another account for making threats of gun violence against women who disagree with transgender identity. After PJ Media reached out to Twitter, the company said it would take action to rectify this error.
Zuby, who has spoken out against the unfairness of males competing in women’s sports, tweeted “advice for women” on “how to land a great guy.” He got in trouble after @EmilyGorcenski responded to this tweet, saying, “I’m like 95% sure i’m sleeping with more women than you and this is terrible advice.” Zuby simply responded “Ok dude…”
Twitter suspended him for ostensibly misgendering Gorcenski, a male who identifies as a woman.
“It wasn’t even a gendered statement, not that it should even matter,” Zuby told The Washington Examiner. “I used it as a synonym for like, ‘Yeah, whatever.’ I didn’t go and research the person I was responding too [sic]. Perhaps I should have because they’re an antifa activist who spends their time trying to doxx people and get people kicked off platforms that they don’t like.”
Following the “ok dude” heard round the world, Twitter suspended Zuby for hateful conduct and allowed him to either appeal the ruling or remove the tweet.
“I could either delete the tweet and my account would be reinstated after 12 hours, or if I thought they made a mistake, I could appeal, so I decided to appeal” Zuby recalled. “This morning, I found that the appeal had been rejected and the only course of action from then was to delete the tweet in question. There was no other option.”
Everyone please demand @Twitter @TwitterSafety #FreeZuby. He was suspended for saying "Ok dude"
He was replying to a person who told him she sleeps with more women than @ZubyMusic does.
"Ok dude" is literally all he said. In common vernacular "dude" is used to refer to anybody. pic.twitter.com/92ICzLFGwZ
— Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) February 27, 2020
Zuby appears to have deleted the tweet, and he thanked the people who stood up for him during his suspension. He also started selling t-shirts with the message, “Ok dude.”
Thanks to all of my friends, fans, supporters (and even some people who dislike me) for whipping a storm over my unfair suspension.
Looks like both #FreeZuby and #OkDude were trending yesterday.
I truly appreciate it! You dudes are the best! 😃 pic.twitter.com/QDk0u3F0Fc
— ZUBY: (@ZubyMusic) February 28, 2020
Gorcenski has repeatedly referred to other Twitter users as “dude” and has condemned those who disagree with transgender activism as Nazis. “I now call all antifa groups to consider the TERF (Trans-exclusionary radical feminist) movement to be properly considered to be a white supremacist movement and treated like the Nazi platform that they are,” he tweeted. “No one gets left behind.”
This kind of vile rhetoric is widespread among transgender activists. Last month, the account “Jellicle Lucy” (@LucyML8) tweeted a threat of gun violence against women who disagree transgender activism. She tweeted a picture of a bullet with the words, “terf pill.” She then followed up that tweet with a picture of a rifle and the words, “and the method through which they should be administered.”
Lois Dum, a woman who opposes transgender activism and has reportedly received many threats on Twitter for her stance, reported these threatening messages to Twitter, but received the message, “We didn’t find a violation of our rules in the content you reported.”
So a transgender activist tweeted a threat of gun violence against women who disagree with transgender identity, and when a woman reported it, @TwitterSafety said they found "no violation of our rules." What gives? Thanks to @SyreyneTalks for bringing it to my attention. pic.twitter.com/lwWTmfJZwg
— Tyler O'Neil (@Tyler2ONeil) March 2, 2020
PJ Media reached out to Twitter for comment on this ruling, quoting Twitter’s rules against violent threats:
Violence: You may not threaten violence against an individual or a group of people. We also prohibit the glorification of violence. Learn more about our violent threat and glorification of violence policies.
A Twitter spokesperson responded to PJ Media’s request for comment, saying the company was wrong to reject the claim that these tweets violated its policy against violent threats. The spokesperson admitted that the tweets violated the social media platform’s wish of harm policy and promised that Twitter would communicate with the account holder.
Sadly, threats from transgender activists are common on Twitter, and the platform has acted to silence a wide range of voices who dissent from the transgender orthodoxy. Canadian feminist Meghan Murphy found herself permanently banned from the site for the crime of warning others about Jessia Yaniv, the notorious male provocateur who bullied women at waxing studios to service his genitals. Twitter has suspended many critics of transgender identity, including Greg Scott, director of media at the Heritage Foundation, and Ph.D. psychologist and gender dysphoria expert Ray Blanchard, among others.
It is heartening that Twitter realized its mistake in this case, but it remains to be seen if the social media platform will apply its standards equally. Expressing a disagreement with transgender activism is not violence and the demonization of gender-critical feminists is terrifying.
Tyler O’Neil is the author of Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center. Follow him on Twitter at @Tyler2ONeil.
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