The Babylon Bee has been suspended by Twitter over a parody article about transgender assistant secretary for health Rachel Levine.
The website’s CEO Seth Dillon posted a series of tweets about the suspension, which was dished out for violating Twitter’s rules “against hateful conduct.”
Under Twitter rules, the offending tweet must be deleted in order to start a 12 hour countdown clock to enable the account to be restored.
However, Dillon has vowed not to delete the tweet.
“We’re not deleting anything. Truth is not hate speech. If the cost of telling the truth is the loss of our Twitter account, then so be it,” he wrote.
The article was in response to USA Today naming Levine the official Woman of the Year, despite the fact that he was born a man.
The Babylon Bee’s Man Of The Year Is Rachel Levine, read the headline of the Babylon Bee article.
“Rachel’s original name is Richard Levine, but he changed it to Rachel for some strange reason a few years ago. Who cares? Who says a dude as accomplished as this can’t be named ‘Rachel?’ This king doesn’t care what people think about him! He often wears a dress, which some people think is weird — but he doesn’t care one bit. Come on! Men in India wear dress-type garments, don’t they?
Since announcing this award, we’ve been told that Levine actually identifies as a woman. We have still chosen to give the award as his self-identification has no bearing on the truth. Congratulations, Rachel Levine!,” the article read.
Dillon urged people to refuse to self-censor, suggesting it was unlikely that Twitter would mass ban millions of people.
“I can think of a few ways: 1. Never censor yourself. Insist that 2 and 2 make 4 even if Twitter tries to compel you to say otherwise. Make them ban tens of millions of us,” he wrote.
The controversy arrived at the same time as another similar farce, the success of transgender UPenn swimmer Lia Thomas, another biological male who dominated a championship qualifying race.
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