Leer en Español
The CEO of satirical site The Babylon Bee, Seth Dillon, on Monday night addressed the outlet’s censorship on Twitter for joking about Rachel Levine’s sexual identity, saying the social network is “making rules about what you can and can’t joke about” and that “truth is not hate speech.”
In a conversation with Tucker Carlson on Fox News, Dillon said he has no intention of deleting the tweet about Levine that prompted his censure. “The two plus two equals five thing,” he said.
“This email that tells us in order to reinstate our account and get access to be able to tweet again, we’ve got to delete this tweet,” Dillon continued. “And the tweet is a joke, that’s the first thing to get straight here. This is satire, it’s just a joke. It’s pretty harmless. And it’s certainly not hurting anybody. And this is a public official, you know, it’s not like we’re like punching down at some downtrodden person.”
Dillon will not “bend the knee” to Twitter
The businessman went on to say that, in requesting the removal of a joke in order to continue using the account, Twitter is asking them to “bend the knee” and “admit” that it is “hateful conduct.” “There’s an appeal process that we can go through. But we’re not going to delete the tweet,” he sentenced.
Dillon told Tucker that comedians’ job is to “poke holes in the popular narrative,” but that now big companies are pushing them to “promote it.”
“We don’t believe that facts are hate speech, that speaking truth is hate speech,” the CEO said. “At some point people have to stick by this, Tucker, people have to be willing to say: Listen, if they want us to deny the truth in order to stay on this platform, then we speak the truth, make them kick you off.”
For his part, Tucker opines that Congress should shut down Twitter for allowing politicians and government officials to “accuse” people of “treason,” but instead it censures those who point out Levine’s biological sex.
