• Twitter updated its policy on hateful content, prohibiting the use of biological pronouns for persons who identify as transgender.
• While the social media platform prohibits misgendering transgender persons, it still has other harmful content, like hardcore pornography and sexually explicit material.
• Other social media platforms ban hardcore porn, but Twitter has failed to keep it off the site, calling into question what the company views as violent and harmful content.

Twitter banned the use of biological pronouns to refer to transgender persons, adding a clause prohibiting the practice to its policy regarding hateful conduct.

The social media platform updated its policies on hateful conduct in October, but the move wasn’t largely noticed until Friday and Saturday when users began commenting on the change, Pink News reported.

“Targeted harassment or expressing hate towards a person, group, or protected category,” is banned, according to Twitter’s Hateful Conduct Policy.

The media platform also writes it is “committed to combating abuse motivated by hatred, prejudice or intolerance.”

” … targeted misgendering or deadnaming of transgender individuals,” is also banned, according to the updated policy rules.

Misgendering refers to using biological pronouns for a transgender person as opposed to pronouns that accord with their new gender identity. Deadnaming refers to using the “dead name,” the name they used before transitioning, to describe or address a transgender person.

Conservative speaker Ben Shapiro commented on the change.

So Twitter is now banning people for stating the basic scientific fact that men are men and women are women, and that men cannot become women simply by thinking themselves so. Twitter vs. reality. https://t.co/Ur6ap8zNUN

— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) November 25, 2018

Swedish journalist Peter Imanuelsen also condemned the policy.

Twitter is now BANNING people for misgendering trans individuals on their platform.

They just updated their official policy to prohibit people from misgendering.

When did social media companies become censors of what people can think?https://t.co/0iFHGnTMnM

— PeterSweden (@PeterSweden7) November 24, 2018

Twitter prohibits hateful imagery, references to mass murders or violent events, comments meant to incite fear in a certain group of people, calling for harm to a certain person or group of people, and violent threats made against an identifiable target.

Graphic accounts like PornHub Cams, however, are not banned on Twitter.

Its tagline reads, “Hey daddy, what do you want me to do on cam for you? I’m all yours..hit that follow button to get to know me!”

Scrolling through PornHub Cams’ Twitter page reveals sexually explicit material, including hardcore pornography. (RELATED: Report: There Were 24,000 Attempts To View Pornography At The UK Parliament In Just Five Months)

Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat prohibit hardcore porn.

Conversely, Twitter does not ban Daily Porn or Porn Extra Hub, which both contain hardcore pornography.

Twitter also does not heavily censor or ban Daily Porn Supply, whose page is cluttered with graphic sexual content.

Twitter does ban “the promotion of adult sexual content” for its paid advertising products, but the ban has failed to prevent large amounts of pornographic content from circulating on the social media platform.

Pornography has long been viewed as harmful by many notable scientists and doctors.

Dr. Patrick F. Fagan reported that habitual use of pornography fosters “a higher tolerance for abnormal sexual behaviors, sexual aggression, promiscuity, and even rape,” in a 2009 paper.

The American Bar Association maintains pornography is harmful to children and promotes aggression and negative behaviors toward women.

Twitter does have rules, however, against sharing “intimate media” without the subject’s consent.

Its policy also states “Media containing adult content is not permitted within live video, profile or header images. All other instances of adult content should be marked as sensitive media.”

Twitter did not respond to The Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

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