Three hours after we listed the email address of a key official at Twitter, asking our subscribers to protest its decision to freeze the account of a Catholic media outlet, Twitter reversed itself and unlocked the account.
Catholic World Report (CWR) is a respectable Catholic media outlet. On January 24, it received notice from Twitter that its account has been locked for hateful conduct. CWR appealed but lost.
CWR posted the following tweet on January 19. “Biden plans to nominate Dr. Rachel Levine, a biological man identifying as a transgender woman who has served as Pennsylvania’s health secretary since 2017, to be HHS Assistant Secretary for Health.”
It was obvious that Twitter took offense to CWR’s description of a ‘biological man identifying as a transgender woman.’
This provided an opening for the Catholic League. Bill Donohue did not mince words. “Twitter is a menace to freedom. It needs to be reined in by the Congress.” To punctuate his point, Donohue quoted Pope Francis saying gender ideology is “demonic.” Would that make the pope a purveyor of hate speech? Donohue asked, “I dare Twitter to silence the Holy Father. Let’s get this settled right now.”
Meanwhile, we asked our subscribers to demand that Twitter reinstate CWR. We made this request at roughly 1:00 p.m. on January 29. Three hours later, after being pounded by our supporters, Twitter notified CWR that its account was being unlocked.
This was a major victory for free speech.
