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BREAKING: Daily Wire's 'What Is A Woman?' Documentary Flagged As 'Hateful Conduct,' Head of Twitter’s Trust and Safety Resigns

Musk Said Twitter's Systems Would Be Updated Tomorrow, Though The Film Will Only Be Visible To The Daily Wire's Followers

Published: June 01, 2023
  |   By Christopher Bertman

The Daily Wire’s documentary What is a Woman? has been flagged for “hateful conduct” by Twitter.

Twitter’s head of trust and safety, Ella Irwin, resigned from the company shortly before the premiere of the conservative media outlet’s film, Reuters reported.

No further information regarding Irwin’s resignation has been revealed.

What is a Woman? was made available to stream through the Daily Wire’s Twitter account shortly after 8 p.m. EST.

The post received over 3,600 retweets and over 7,500 likes before being flagged by Twitter.

The film, presented by the Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh, was scheduled to broadcast free of charge for a period of 24 hours on Twitter to commemorate the documentary’s one-year anniversary.

“That was fast,” Boreing wrote in a Twitter post. “Even after Elon Musk said Twitter’s threat to label What is a Woman? ’hateful conduct’ and to throttle the film’s reach was a mistake.”

“Twitter did that very thing instantly upon the film going live.”

“Our film got 3,500 retweets in two minutes and then Twitter flagged it as hate speech and shut down retweets,” Walsh said. “They are terrified of this film.”

“It seems someone at Twitter staff chose to censor it anyways less than 20 minutes after it was posted,” wrote filmmaker Robby Starbuck, who noted Musk’s previous confirmation that What is a Woman? would in fact be allowed to stream on the platform. Musk initially referred to the platform’s decision to flag the documentary as a “mistake by many people” at the company.

Nearly an hour after the Daily Wire’s post was flagged and throttled, Musk addressed the incident by noting Twitter would update their system so the conservative media outlet’s followers would see the post in their feed.

“It won’t be recommended to non-followers (nor will any advertising be associated with it),” he continued.

The platform owner further clarified that “deliberate” sharing of the Daily Wire’s post would be allowed, noting “sensitive content” won’t be suggested for people unless they search for the specific content or are sent the content by a friend.

Prior to the documentary’s flagging and visibility throttle, Walsh asked Musk if the film would be provided full reach along with other previously agreed upon terms.

Musk responded by clarifying the post would be advertising restricted.

“Advertisers have the right to decide what content their ads appear with, which will impact reach to some degree,” the Twitter owner wrote.

Boreing questioned if Musk had reviewed What is a Woman? and asked what categorized the film as “sensitive content.”

Daily Wire host Candace Owens echoed Boreing’s sentiment by asking, “What specifically is sensitive about a 2 hour documentary that asks people, ‘what is a woman?’”

“Positively ludicrous to refer to this content as sensitive,” she continued. “People are sensitive. The content itself is not.”

This morning, the Daily Wire’s co-CEO Jeremy Boreing confirmed in a tweet thread the social media outlet had cancelled the originally agreed upon deal citing two instances of “misgendering.”

The instances of “misgendering” include a father referring to his 14-year-old daughter, who identified as a transgender boy, as “her,” along with a store owner who uses the “wrong” pronoun during one interaction with a transgender identifying person.

Boreing said the Daily Wire reminded Twitter the platform had removed “misgendering” from their policy, that the term itself is misleading, and that enforcing such a policy places them on the side of the most radical elements in society – the side most opposed to their commitment to free speech.

The social media outlet informed The Daily Wire that “misgendering” was only removed from their policy because they “didn’t need to be that specific,” though still consider “misgendering” abuse and harassment, according to Boreing.

“They gave us the opportunity to edit the film to comply,” he said. “We declined.”

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