Twitter’s latest censoring of inoffensive speech drew a sharp response from Bill Donohue:
March 10, 2022
Mr. Parag Agrawal
CEO, Twitter
1355 Market St. Ste. 900
San Francisco, CA 94103
Dear Mr. Agrawal:
You and I are in a different line of work, but we share one thing in common: we both oppose hateful speech and conduct. In my case, I am mostly concerned about hateful speech directed at Catholics.
I am writing to you because I do not understand why those of us who publicly acknowledge the fact that there are only two sexes, one male and one female, is considered hateful speech by Twitter. This is simply a pedestrian observation, one that also happens to be grounded in science.
Yet Twitter recently suspended the personal account of a woman candidate for a senate seat in Missouri, Vicky Hartzler, because she tweeted, “Women’s sports are for women, not men pretending to be women.” She was referring to a male University of Pennsylvania swimmer who claims to be a woman and is allowed to compete in women’s sports.
Twitter has sanctioned at least three other persons who have made similar comments.
“The Twitter Rules” defines “Hateful conduct” as follows: “You may not promote violence against, threaten, or harass other people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, caste, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability, or serious disease.”
That sounds reasonable. Could you please identify what Ms. Hartzler said that violated this policy? She obviously did not promote violence against, threaten, or harass anyone. So on what basis was her account suspended?
Telling the truth can be painful, but as Catholics we are called to do so.
Sincerely,
William A. Donohue, Ph.D.
President
When we went to press we had not heard from Mr. Agrawal, but we can assure you that he heard from our email subscribers, many of whom unloaded on him.
While a number of internet media outlets commented on this issue, we were the only national organization to directly confront Twitter. Many are understandably afraid to rattle the social media giant, but we chose not to succumb to intimidation. There is no virtue in remaining silent when those who hold to traditional moral values are being silenced by Big Tech.
