On June 13, Twitter user Chaya Raichik, the woman behind the popular Twitter profile, Libs of TikTok, revealed that she has been enduring an onslaught of death threats by who she calls “radical leftists,” prompting Elon Musk to ask why Twitter has yet to to action on the offending accounts.
“Update: I have now received about a dozen death threats after radical leftists accused me of being a domestic terrorist extremist. Twitter has not removed any of the accounts of those who sent the threats,” Raichik tweeted.
Musk took notice of her tweet and responded, “Why? @Twitter.”
One account, which was opened just this month and has no followers, tweeted at Raichik, “hello can you please give your address for research purposes,” with a picture of a missile.
Another tweet by a user going by the handle “hoops mccann” read, “It’d be a good idea to check your brake lines before driving for the next month or so. Be a real shame if you passed away in a car accident of some kind.”
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Several other tweets sent to Raichik are not appropriate to cite due to the use of obscenities and violent imagery.
Twitter defines violent threats as “statements of an intent to kill or inflict serious physical harm on a specific person or group of people.”
Twitter users who either threaten to kill or sexually assault someone or seriously harm someone are subject to expulsion from the platform.
“We will immediately and permanently suspend any account found to be posting violent threats,” Twitter’s Help Center says.
Some of the accounts that sent the threats are no longer searchable; however, others, like user @theBreadEnjoyer, remain active.
Ian Miles Cheong, an active Twitter user with over 329,000 followers, commented, “On a just platform, everyone would be treated equally. As it is, you can be banned for merely criticizing (not even threatening) woke progressives, but they can send conservatives death threats without any repercussions.”
Musk responded to Cheong’s tweet, saying that “a platform cannot be considered inclusive or fair if it is biased against half the country.”
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Leaked internal messages
Leaked internal messages by Twitter employees — posted to the official website for Libs of TikTok — indicate employees at Twitter are debating whether or not to outright ban the @LibsofTikTok account.
“Like i don’t get how this account, which exists solely to generate targeted violence at marginalized people, continues to be allowed to post,” reads one text.
“But if we deplatform this account, we might erode trust in our platform from users who already think we’re irredeemably biased against conservatives,” reads another.
“I mean we successfully deplatformed Trump – I don’t think deplatforming Libs of TikTok is going to cause a mass exodus but I guess it may not be in our ‘fiduciary’ interest to enact a ban on a high profile account right now…” a Twitter employee said.
The @libsoftiktok account reposts content created by liberal, left-wing and LGTB TikTok accounts usually with little or no commentary.
The account has been suspended several times by Twitter and was most recently locked down over posts about children at drag shows.
Seth Dillon, CEO for the satirical news site the Babylon Bee, who recently announced that he is providing financial backing for the LIbs of TikTok creator tweeted on June 8, “BREAKING: Twitter just locked out @libsoftiktok for posting a thread about several recent drag shows for kids. The thread allegedly violates Twitter’s rules against abuse and harassment. You know what’s actually abusive? Drag shows for kids.”
“You can promote drag shows for kids on Twitter. That’s fine,” DIllion said in a subsequent tweet, adding that, “You can even share videos of yourself performing in them. The only thing you can’t do is criticize them.Somehow the feelings of a few drag queens matter more to Twitter than the corruption of a generation of children,” Dillion said.
