A documentary on transidentity sows discord at Twitter

The documentary by conservative American media The Daily Wire led to the resignation of Ella Irwin, director of moderation policies. twitter.com/ellagirwin

What is a woman? Less than 48 hours after it was posted on Twitter, this documentary by the conservative American media The Daily Wire on transidentity will have led to a double resignation from strategic positions: Ella Irwin (photo)director of moderation policies, as well as the director of “brand safety”, AJ Brown, responsible for ensuring advertisers, who have been much fewer since the takeover of Twitter by Elon Musk, that their ads will not end up alongside problematic content. Ella Irwin’s team had initially decided to drastically reduce the virality of this documentary.

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In question, pages where trans people are “misgendered”that is to say designated by birth sex, a practice imilated to a “hate conduct” by the rules of the social network. Publicly challenged by the management of the Daily Wire, Elon Musk described “of error” the decision of Ella Irwin’s service. “Using the wrong pronouns is rude, but it’s not against the law”, he explained. A few hours later, Elon Musk shared the documentary with his 142 million subscribers, pointing out that“every parent should watch it”. The video accumulated 154 million views on Sunday.

The controversy illustrates the ideological tensions between Twitter employees and their shareholder, who continues to show his closeness to the American ultra-right. These departures risk complicating the task of Linda Yaccarino, the future general manager of Twitter, whose first mission will be to convince as many major advertisers as possible to return to the social network.