Twitter locked the account of a right-leaning parody site, The Babylon Bee, after it awarded Rachel Levine, the transgender Biden administration official, the title of “man of the year.”
The Babylon Bee story was a reaction to USA Today’s naming of Levine, who is US assistant secretary for health for the US Department of Health and Human Services, as one of its “women of the year” last week.
Twitter says it will restore the account, which has more than 1.3 million followers, if the Bee deletes the tweet, but CEO Seth Dillon says he has no intention of doing so.
“We’re not deleting anything,” Dillon tweeted from his personal account. “Truth is not hate speech. If the cost of telling the truth is the loss of our Twitter account, then so be it.”
The banned article notes that Levine “serves proudly as the first man in that position to dress like a western cultural stereotype of a woman. He is also an admiral in the US Public Health Service Commissioned Corps. What a boss!”
“He often wears a dress, which some people think is weird — but he doesn’t care one bit,” the article continues. “Come on! Men in India wear dress-type garments, don’t they?”
Dillon tweeted news of the suspension from his own account, attaching a screenshot of the notice from Twitter.
Twitter cited its policy on “hateful conduct,” which states: “You may not promote violence against, threaten, or harass other people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability, or serious disease.”
“The account you referenced as been temporarily blocked for violating our hateful conduct policy,” a Twitter spokesperson said.
“The account owner is required to delete the violative Tweet before regaining access to their account.”
