On Halloween, Elon Musk recommended that everyone on Twitter follow Yoel Roth, Twitter’s head of Trust and Safety. Conservatives asked Musk to rethink that recommendation. Roth has had some very interesting opinions about Republicans and conservatives, tweeting that “I’m just saying, we fly over those states that voted for a racist tangerine for a reason,” among many others. A little more than a week later, Roth left the company, but we sure are learning a lot about the work he did at Twitter from messages on the company’s Slack channels.
We know this came up earlier, but Roth has a Ph.D. in communication, and his dissertation took a good look at the gay hook-up app Grindr. We’re cool with Roth being gay, but it’s interesting to see the works he had published before taking over Trust and Safety at Twitter.
Dude's research background is wild: pic.twitter.com/G3LYlVXq8y
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) December 4, 2022
From 2017’s “No fats, no femmes, no privacy?”:
Racism, ageism, body shaming, and femmephobia are common tropes in user profiles on gay-targeted social networking sites. The blog Douchebags of Grindr is dedicated to the task of chronicling this perceived misbehavior, posting screenshots of offensive profies for public view and ridicule. Do websites like Douchebags of Grindr breach the expected sociotechnological boundaries of gay social networking services, decontectualizing and resharing personal information without permission?
2014 saw the publication of “Locating the ‘Scruff Guy’: Theorizing body and space in gay geosocial media.”
From 2012:
I enjoy having the kinds of meetings where googling “gay bareback porn” is considered academic work.
— Yoel Roth (@yoyoel) September 25, 2012
Disqualifying based on that, alone. He’s a CRT & critical gender theory ideologue.
— Andy Ngô 🏳️🌈 (@MrAndyNgo) December 5, 2022
I’ll admit I was somewhat apprehensive when Yoel left after Elon’s takeover. However the more we unravel about these folks, everyday, the more I’m beginning to realize how prudent and strategic Elon’s approach has been.
— Shajive Jeganathan (@shajive) December 4, 2022
This is the language of an all-out Company Man, academia version. All the standard tics and nods are in place, an imitative personality at work, “positioning” himself where every grad student wants to be, in a knowing edginess that is entirely approved by superiors.
— Mark Bauerlein (@mark_bauerlein) December 5, 2022
Stochastic structural wokeism – How to string meaningless words into meaningless phrases for fun and profit.
— Mike Lyons (@DS_Apostate) December 4, 2022
When I see stuff like this, my nostalgia for grad school goes out the window.
— Justin Lee (@justindeanlee) December 4, 2022
Gay marxist word salad at its finest.
— Todd (@ToddWontComply) December 4, 2022
I glanced through the PhD in Communication program at Penn. You will not be surprised to find that the faculty & assigned reading are unremittingly left-wing, critical theory based. A student will proceed through the program without encountering a single contrary voice.
— Jeff Sechelski (@JeffSechelski) December 5, 2022
Hard to believe he was ever taken seriously as one who could be an asset to anything Elon is trying to do.
— Dog, bots best friend (@dog_on_right) December 4, 2022
Yoel Roth was the emperor and High Priest Of Woke for a while, wasn’t he?
— Ray, Boomer (@Benrayco) December 4, 2022
Imagine getting a PhD for such ridiculous “research”. He basically has a gender studies degree masquerading as a communication one
— African Immigrant Woman of Color (very oppressed) (@stopharassers) December 4, 2022
If he can get a Ph.D in Grindr, then I'm getting one in Baseball Reference.
— Sweet Willy Rollbar (@vorozab) December 5, 2022
Is that the unbiased peer reviewed scientific research I heard so much about?
— HappyCwe (@TheDPotatoe) December 4, 2022
Yoel Roth's research is everything wrong with academia: self-absorbed, naval-gazing triviality sold with silly urgency and import to a market that doesn't exist, subsidized by government.
— Tim Heaton 👁 (@timtheaton) December 5, 2022
Modernity keeps dividing. Labor came first and led to massive productivity but specialization in academia is long past effectiveness. Now it generates nothing but certifications for fuzzy, polysyllabic mush.
— Cooper Mallock (@CooperMallock) December 4, 2022
The real danger is here the system which rewards someone who studied and published these nonsense stuffs by lending him job at one of the most influential tech companies.
— Nidhiram Sordar (@SordarNidhiram) December 4, 2022
Not just any job, he was qualified to determine what all of humanity got to speak to each other about online.
— Derek Imig (@ImigDerek) December 5, 2022
We suppose Rufo is engaging in “stochastic terrorism” by riling up his followers to commit violence against Roth. We don’t care if Roth is super, super gay or not, but it does make us wonder why accounts like Libs of TikTok were so heavily on the radar of the people with their fingers on the “suspend” button.
And then there’s this:
I think I may have found the problem @elonmusk https://t.co/rYGLzmSK0R
— Eliza (@elizableu) December 10, 2022
This explains a lot
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 10, 2022
Looks like Yoel is arguing in favor of children being able to access adult Internet services in his PhD thesis: pic.twitter.com/1NiBohjhMQ
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 10, 2022
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Related:
DAMNING thread takes former head of Twitter Trust & Safety Yoel Roth APART tweet by tweet https://t.co/eDn01eJclX
— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) December 9, 2022
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