A Twitter official confirmed they removed over 5,000 tweets depicting a poster for a planned "Trans Day of Vengeance" this Saturday, saying the tweets violated their rules for inciting violence. Many of these tweets were from conservatives warning about the protest.
Twitter safety said that the tweets were removed through automated processes without considering the context for efficiency's sake due to the large amount of tweets.
News that the Trans Radical Activist Network ("TRAN") will hold a #Trans Day of Vengeance" on April 1 in front of the U.S. Supreme Court sparked outrage from some Twitter users in the wake of the mass shooting by a transgender shooter at a Nashville Christian school on Monday.
TRAN describes itself as "a network of unapologetic activists fighting for Queer Liberation." The radical group promoted the protest as recent as last week on Twitter.
RADICAL GROUP'S ‘TRANS DAY OF VENGEANCE’ MOVES FORWARD IN WAKE OF NASHVILLE SCHOOL SHOOTING
Twitter’s head of Trust and Safety said the social media company removed thousands of tweets showing the poster for the event because it violated their rules.
"We had to automatically sweep our platform and remove >5000 tweets /retweets of this poster. We do not support tweets that incite violence irrespective of who posts them. "Vengeance" does not imply peaceful protest. Organizing or support for peaceful protests is ok," Twitter's Ella Irwin tweeted on Wednesday.
Irwin followed up to say that no accounts who shared the poster were punished with a "strike" on their account, but they just restricted the media's reach.
"There is no impact to users for having tweeted it unless it is reposted after removal or was posted with additional calls for violence/ wishes of harm," she tweeted.
U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., claimed this was a "lie" showing a screenshot of her own account which was temporarily suspended because she said she warned about the event. Greene’s account was restored after just hours of being suspended.
MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE'S TWITTER ACCOUNT TEMPORARILY SUSPENDED FOR VIOLATING RULES
Last month Twitter rolled out restrictions against "violent speech" which says users may not "threaten, incite, glorify, or express desire for violence or harm."
Twitter acknowledged its policy might be controversial in some instances when responding to the backlash over removed tweets.
The group holding the event denied their call for vengeance was violent. They also denounced the Nashville shooting.
"We also reject any connection between that horrific event and ours. Vengeance means fighting back with vehemence. We are fighting against false narratives, criminalization, and eradication of our existence," the group put out in a statement.
Twitter did not respond to a request for clarification about the removed tweets.
