Twitter’s Olive Branch: mitigation of “dehumanizing speech”

HA HA HA HA HA‼!

Americans have become a laughing stock, and it’s not just because of Donald Trump whose speech at the United Nations on Tuesday, September 25, 2018, earned open ridicule throughout the General Assembly.¹

The world watches America’s descent into a hell of division and vitriol, the likes of which haven’t been seen in more than a generation. They look at how we treat one another, our name-calling, our lack of coherence, and our fanatical partisanism. When Americans criticize the human rights record of other countries, the world rhetorically asks, “Are you for real?” while sneering with disbelief. How do Americans have any right to criticize the human rights record of other countries when citizens treat other citizens so shoddily every day?²

We need only look at social media to find examples of Americans lack of civility toward Americans, uncivil treatment of immigrants, and uncivil treatment of minorities of all sorts including transpeople. Of all social media platforms, Twitter has been criticized particularly heavily. There’s a simple reason for this: a cap on the number of characters one may post demands quick statements, and these quickies often generate thoughtless speech that slides into long recognized modes of propaganda.

So now Twitter wants to adjust its policies to reverse this trend.³

THE PLOY OF DEHUMANIZATION

Social media, Twitter included, has long sought to maintain free exchange of ideas. But since 2016, we’ve seen various examples of what Twitter calls “dehumanizing speech.” Here are some examples which may or may not apply directly to the new policy:

“GOPig” (referring to Republicans as disgusting animals)⁴
“Snowflakes” (referring to anyone not towing a Far Right agenda as “weak” and “coldhearted”)⁵
“Troon” (referring to transwomen, short for “transgender goon,” depicting activists as “terrorists” and “stupid miscreants”)⁶
“Gender Ideology” (referring to transpeople in the same manner as Pope Francis on World Youth Day 2016, a back-door reduction of transpeople to a condemned “heresy” while pretending to separate the idea from the people who assert their civil rights in an attempt to attack those rights, and subsequently, force conversion and detransition as conditions for possibly regaining them)⁷

A vicious cycle erupts as a result. Partisan outrage overrides human decency. People engage in collective blocking campaigns or collective reporting on the basis of trifles. People set up fake accounts in order to facilitate such attacks. People resort to doxxing: the mean-spirited publishing of another’s contact and/or financial information online in order to carry on harassment offline, forcing people to relocate and driving some to suicide: the ultimate objective of a doxxer. Yes, there are people who are sick, unethical, and immoral enough to delight in such activities and we have seen doxxing in every demographic even if some try to deny this is so. It’s an act of cyber warfare conducted by citizen against citizen.⁸

A COLLECTIVE APPROACH TO POLICY

Here’s how Twitter explains the proposed policy:

“Twitter’s Dehumanization Policy

“You may not dehumanize anyone based on membership in an identifiable group, as this speech can lead to offline harm.

“Definitions:

“Dehumanization: Language that treats others as less than human. Dehumanization can occur when others are denied of human qualities (animalistic dehumanization) or when others are denied of human nature (mechanistic dehumanization). Examples can include comparing groups to animals and viruses (animalistic), or reducing groups to their genitalia (mechanistic).

“Identifiable group: Any group of people that can be distinguished by their shared characteristics such as their race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability, serious disease, occupation, political beliefs, location, or social practices.”⁹

Twitter has done what few services do: ask for feedback in a survey open till 6:00 am PST (sic) on Tuesday, October 9, 2018. It represents a commitment to democratization. Account holders can go to the survey at this link.¹⁰

There’s a natural limitation to the survey, of course. The survey only permits comments up to 280 characters, restricting the full range of comment. 280 characters allow less opportunity than the standard 3 minutes allotted for comments by people who address local city councils or county boards of supervisors.

Worse yet, a societal limitation seems inevitable. Those who nourish their online presence by harassing others won’t be inclined to respond. Neither will victims who have given up on Twitter or have reduced their participation in the conversation in order to keep a low profile. After all, the latter kinds will be inclined to believe that the proposed change in Twitter policy won’t make much of a difference. Twitter must prove its effectiveness to them before they test the waters again.

It comes down to the de facto balance of power created in the game that Twitter is. LGBT activist Thorne Melcher criticized Twitter in the New York Times last year, citing Twitter’s treating profanity “more seriously than slurs or threats.” She made an important observation about the resulting “dangerous power imbalance.” Who push back the most, the harassers or the harassed? She stated it’s the latter and it is they who face suspension and deletion of tweets, specifically by the orchestrated attacks by both Conservatives and factions of Feminists.¹¹

DOES TWITTER GO FAR ENOUGH?

Despite its attempt to adjust the Twitter rules to improve the societal conversation, the definitions of “dehumanizing speech” are probably more limiting than they should be. Consider the examples above.

“GOPig” clearly fits the description of animalistic dehumanization. “
Snowflake” very likely fits the description of mechanistic dehumanization.
“Troon” probably fits the description of animalistic dehumanization.
“Gender ideology” is much more slippery, even if one may accept it as mechanistic dehumanization.

Latin Americans demonstrated the issue of the term “gender ideology.” Consider a couple of videos circulated in those countries:

A video produced by the Mexican anti-abortion group ViVoz depicted “gender ideology” as leading to “teenage pregnancy, sexually-transmitted diseases, abortion, depression, [and] suicide.”¹²
Another video produced by Red Familia Columbia also depicted “gender ideology” as leading to “sexually-transmitted disease, abortion, addiction, loneliness, depression, and suicide.”¹³

Both groups claimed, “this is a war, and the battle is for the minds and values of our children.”¹⁴

In other words, both groups regard children as incapable of expressing valid existential beliefs and that their children are their own property whose uniqueness as individuals necessarily take a back seat to church-based regimentation.

The videos also represented a church-generated red herring against transpeople: that the public interaction of transpeople, represented as “gender ideology” renders a cause-and-effect relationship to other ills they decry.

The term “gender ideology” isn’t about some anti-Christian conspiratorial doctrine by a monolithic cabal. Why not? It’s because there’s no singular ideology endemic to transpeople exists other than “let’s treat one another like human beings,” even though many transpeople fall far short of that ideal. Nor do transpeople represent an anti-Christian conspiracy of any sort. In fact, many transpeople are unapologetically Christian. The Roman Catholic Church knows this.

The term is most often used interchangeably between a perceived doctrine and transpeople specifically. Which version a person may be inclined to use depends upon the immediate social advantage perceived by the one using the term and whether or not a person is inclined to accept a transperson in the first place. “Gender ideology” gives license to discriminate while falsely claiming to do no such thing.

From time to time we even find ministries who reach out to transpeople, not that they genuinely accept transpeople, but as an effort to cause their targets to drop their internal defenses and accept a casual, if not formal, process of deprogramming. This practice may involve some form of “intervention” to “rescue” targeted people from “cults” as people of various denominations (and those who try to claim they aren’t a denomination) often apply the pejorative. For transpeople, such deprogramming involves conversion and detransition by force of conditional acceptance if not actual physical force. Some efforts consist of a soft-sell. Others can turn violent. These are modifications of actions have existed from the Inquisition. We would be naïve to think it ever went out of existence. It didn’t. It actually went underground.

But the backdoor nature of the term “gender ideology” will most likely elude Twitter administrators even if it does lead to offline harm. After all, Twitter is more interested in dehumanizing slurs per sé than labels of philosophies, and the term is sufficient to masquerade as the latter.

COMMITMENTS REQUIRED

Twitter is striving to rise above the breakdown of civility. So should we whether or not we use their service. After all, no platform can succeed in protecting its account holders and promoting societal civility if society remains determined to remain uncivil.

That includes the trans community. Are there ways transpeople aren’t civil? Of course. Many transpeople engage in online trolling, not only to troll against those anti-transgender, but also against other transpeople. One need not look far to find profanity-laden rants, and push-back harassment cited by Thorn Melcher. The names of uncivil transpeople adorn many block lists and none of us should pretend otherwise.

It also comes down to how we may dehumanize, even in the use of terms coined by another party. Consider the transgender use of the term “TERF” referring to “trans-exclusionary radical feminist.” “TERF” can be perceived as mechanistic dehumanization, liking the person to grass meant to be “walked over.” Gwendolyn Ann Smith questioned the ultimate efficacy of transpeople freely using it, offering this insight:

“While they may balk at the term (because, after all, they’re going to balk at anything, as they are not arguing in good faith), by using it, we never the less [sic] let them “own” both words by using it.

“Oh, one more thing, in the light of day. The “Trans Exclusionary” section of the acronym is also wrong, It’s not about excluding trans people. It’s about the complete obliteration of trans people and their supporters, either by death, or further forcing to the margins.”¹⁵

Who coined the term “trans exclusionary radical feminist” in the first place? According to TransAdvocate in an interview of TigTog, transpeople coined it and others have considered it “insulting”, even if it wasn’t meant to be so.¹⁶

But let’s assume for argument sake that the party itself coined the term. Does that make its use fair game? Not necessarily. Consider a comparison: the mean-spirited pejorative, popularly called the “N-word”, directed against decent Black-identified people. Use of the word by someone perceived to be “White” or who identifies as “White” is altogether inappropriate except to point out its hatefulness. However, Black-identified peers use it liberally among themselves in an entirely different context. See the difference? It’s a different matter when someone identifies herself as a “trans-exclusionary radical feminist” from a transperson saying that someone is a “trans-exclusionary radical feminist.” Given Ms. Smith’s insight, it may be best to drop the term altogether and simply argue against the tenets the term embodies, allowing the term to fail by its innate fallacies.

So while Twitter is attempting something laudable, it won’t be complete. It will never be complete. Those who seek to harm others by dehumanization will simply seek more sophisticated methods. The ultimate commitment falls upon every individual who uses the service. Do we want to advance hate by being hateful ourselves? Do we seek a peaceful societal revolution for greater acceptance? Or do we want to escalate violence that can only generate more violence, bringing harm even upon those who refuse to engage in such tactics? Do we simply sneer at the casualties of our own making, dismissing them as the consequence of war? The consequences if we do can only reap an ever-deepening futility.

Our commitment must follow our highest and best purpose, and those eager for violence will never achieve it.

________________________________

REFERENCES:

Correction: The article has been edited to reflect the true gender of Thorne Melcher and the author and TMP apologize for the oversight.

Featured Image: The Twitter logo represented in the manner of the legendary dove that bears an olive branch, Image adapted by the author. The author neither represents nor implies representation of having any involvement with Twitter staff.