Update on Twitter suppression of Matt Walsh’s ‘What is a Woman?’ (updated)

This is a breaking story, so the 24-hour rule applies: All reports within the first 24 hours are suspect. But we will strive to give you the most accurate information.

All day today we have been talking about how Twitter interfered with plans to show Matt Walsh’s documentary ‘What is a Woman?’ discussing transgender ideology, here and here.

As of about a quarter after 8 p.m. Daily Wire attempted to post the movie on Twitter and this is the result.

You can apparently watch the movie if you go to their Twitter page. But if you attempt to Retweet it, you get this message:

If you attempt to share it, you get this message (which is why we can’t even embed the Tweet on this website).

There is, however, a limited exception to this ‘no share’ rule:

Watch What Is A Woman? below!

To share, hold down on video and select “tweet video”. pic.twitter.com/N1q0ej6Xp0

— Jared Monroe (@TheJaredMonroe) June 2, 2023

Since that Tweet was Retweeted by the Daily Wire, we’re going to take that as an endorsement of that tactic. And we have tested it for ourselves, and it works (despite our typo):

The video of the dead Enders at Twitter don’t want you to see pic.twitter.com/qPjBz73z7L

You gotta clean house, @elonmusk

— (((Aaron Walker))) (@AaronWorthing) June 2, 2023

As of this writing, a person can retweet, quote tweet or otherwise share the Mr. Monroe’s Tweet and our own:

Well, apparently I can share it, @FilmLadd @PolitiBunny https://t.co/eTA12tScmQ

— (((Aaron Walker))) (@AaronWorthing) June 2, 2023

Obviously, events are moving quickly and that might change at any moment. For instance, those Tweets sharing the video might have their own visibility reduced. Who knows?

So, what is going on? This is purely speculation, but we have long believed that there were still some ‘dead enders’ at Twitter who still love censorship with the heat of a thousand suns. Maybe they were hoping that Musk would eventually leave, or turn his attention away. Maybe they just hoped to sneak things into the code. But this seems to have brought at least some of them into the open in sort of a kamikaze run to try to stop you from seeing this movie. Naturally, such people deserve the full Streisand Effect.

Despite @elonmusk promising that the @realDailyWire film "What Is A Woman" by @MattWalshBlog wouldn’t be censored, it seems someone @Twitter staff chose to censor it anyways less than 20 minutes after it was posted. You can’t even comment. Whoever did this should be fired. pic.twitter.com/kAVuULhjkA

— Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) June 2, 2023

We’re updating the system tomorrow so that those who follow @realDailyWire will see this in their feed, but it won’t be recommended to non-followers (nor will any advertising be associated with it)

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 2, 2023

The visibility issue prevents it from even being commented on at the moment. It should be sharable on timelines too.

— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) June 2, 2023

Commenting & deliberate sharing will be allowed. Sensitive content just won’t be pushed to people unless they ask for it or a friend sends it to them.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 2, 2023

For his part, Walsh is understandably frustrated:

Is “misgendering” against the rules or not? You bought the company and reinstated the Babylon Bee after a “misgendering” violation. Now you’re telling us that our film will be suppressed on those same grounds. This makes no sense. https://t.co/VJ2im8JPX7

— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) June 2, 2023

This is naturally a fast-moving story, and the documentary comes highly recommended to us. In all frankness, we asked the friend who recommended it if it was just ‘preaching to the choir,’ and he indicated there was more to see than just telling us what we already believed. As you might have noticed above, it is free for 24 hours only—if the Daily Wire doesn’t choose to extend it.

For ourselves, we are going to take a listen this evening as we attend to other things.

We will keep you updated if there are further developments.

Update: We spent some time away from Twitter to actually, you know, watch the thing. Okay, we let it play in the background as we did some housework and played video games engaged in really important intellectual pursuits. Honestly, we think this is the kind of thing best shown to people who are wavering on this issue, not someone like us who has figured out that gender ideology is bull. That being said, the documentary never left us bored.

But whether one likes the movie or not, it is nothing more than peaceful disagreement. He doesn’t advocate killing all trans people or something like that. He just engages in the movement and explains why he disagrees with their viewpoint.

Still, there have been some discussion of the ongoing problems Twitter has been having, and so we thought we would add some tweets to the post:

Who is in control at Twitter? The problem is no one seems to know… This is actually worse than outright suppression. Why? Because it's not comprehensible.

— Dr Jordan B Peterson (@jordanbpeterson) June 2, 2023

Maybe is just legacy code. It takes time to fix algorithms. You have to understand what the intentions of the programmers who created it. I would give them some time. You don’t want to introduce other bugs by trying to patch it

— Carlos Carrillo (@CarlosICarrillo) June 2, 2023

We think it is extremely unlikely that Twitter has a code capable of detecting anything objectionable in this kind of content. We think this is human-powered.

I think it's more current staff acting as if nothing has changed and hoping Elon won't notice.

— Vexed (@AbsolutelyVexed) June 2, 2023

If we assume whoever did this isn’t completely stupid, they had to know they would get noticed. We compare this more to a kamikaze attack. They think this is so important that they were willing to risk losing their jobs. And of course, it probably isn’t going to work: It’ll probably backfire.

Seriously, has no one at Twitter heard of the Streisand Effect?

The Streisand Effect on this will set an all-time record!

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 2, 2023

Okay, one guy has. But the tweet Musk is responding to has had its visibility limited because—you guessed it—it shared the same movie. In fact, reportedly it was only after Musk had replied:

This is wild. Twitter suppressed a tweet containing the Daily Wire video shortly after Elon himself responded to it. pic.twitter.com/U0ZJTHMRdj

— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) June 2, 2023

Some are even suggesting that this was a publicity stunt by Musk to promote the movie?

Despite Twitter censoring @MattWalshBlog ‘What is a Woman’ @realDailyWire documentary this evening and Elon issuing several tweets adding to the confusion he has now tweeted that the censorship will create “The Streisand Effect.”

The Streisand effect is an unintended… pic.twitter.com/ODcP5ngKPB

— Oli London (@OliLondonTV) June 2, 2023

The full text reads:

Despite Twitter censoring @MattWalshBlog ‘What is a Woman’ @realDailyWire documentary this evening and Elon issuing several tweets adding to the confusion he has now tweeted that the censorship will create ‘The Streisand Effect.’

The Streisand effect is an unintended consequence of attempts to hide, remove, or censor information, where it instead leads to increased awareness of that information.

Was it all a carefully curated plan by Elon to make the video reach an even greater audience?

Respectfully, that doesn’t seem likely to us, but feel free to make up your own mind.

Finally, Matt Walsh gets philosophical:

Well, it didn't happen exactly how I expected but I'd say we successfully coopted the first day of Pride Month

— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) June 2, 2023

Fair enough.

***

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Update on Twitter suppression of Matt Walsh’s ‘What is a Woman?’ (updated)

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