Twitter Quietly Removes Feature That Protects Trans Users From Hate

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The new policy removes trans-specific language from the website’s reporting system.

In a new overhaul of its reporting system, X (formerly Twitter) has removed users’ ability to report misgendering or transphobic harassment.

Alejandra Caraballo, civil rights attorney and clinical instructor at the Harvard Law School Cyberlaw Clinic, discovered this update to the reporting feature and took to the social media site to announce that the options to report specific anti-trans forms of harassment had been removed.

“Twitter has overhauled its reporting system,” she wrote. “It has removed the ability to report targeted misgendering and transphobic harassment.”

While you can still report “dehumanizing” content—which includes gender and gender-identity — there is no longer a specific category for anti-trans hate and Caraballo said that the new policy also “removed the ability to add context to the report.”

Twitter has overhauled its reporting system. It has removed the ability to report targeted misgendering and transphobic harassment. It has also removed the ability to add context to the report. pic.twitter.com/N7VQ8foJsH
— Alejandra Caraballo (@Esqueer_) October 3, 2023

In the past, when reporting a post on X, users were prompted to choose from a list of the types of harassment they encountered on the site. The options used to include, “misgendering or deadnaming me,” “spreading fear about me because of my identity,” “encouraging others to harass me because of my identity,” and “referencing a violent event that targeted people because of their identity,” according to screenshots obtained by the tech blog Pocket-lint.

The new system lacks this type of specificity and doesn’t allow users to add context or nuance to their reports of harassment.

Since Elon Musk bought X in October 2022, the social media behemoth has made a whole host of policy changes. In fact, this isn’t the first time the site has sparked backlash for anti-trans policy changes. Back in April, X quietly removed language from its conduct policy that specifically protected transgender individuals from online harassment, NBC News reported.

“It’s perpetuating this incentive to engage in the targeting of trans people, especially since it’s being favored by the algorithm because it’s creating outrage,” Caraballo told the outlet. “It’s relating to emotions of fear, anger and disgust, which are typically associated with better promotion by algorithms on social media sites because it increases engagement.”

At that time, users were still able to report a post for “misgendering or deadnaming,” but now that is no longer an option because of the newest update to the abuse and harassment policy.

Last year, Media Matters and GLAAD found that in the wake of acquiring X and becoming the CEO, Musk “plunged the company into chaos with erratic decisions” and that “anti-LGBTQ rhetoric has increased on the platform.”

The report also said that since Musk’s takeover, right-wing accounts and posts that use the anti-LGBTQ+ slur “groomer” have seen marked increases in retweets and mentions. The nine accounts they focused on “saw an over 1,200% increase in retweets of tweets with the slur.”

The New York Times also reported that after Musk took over, slurs against gay men increased from an average of 2,506 times a day to 3,964 times a day. But it’s not only hate against the queer community that is spreading like wildfire on X, racist and anti-semitic posts are on the rise too.