Fox News host Tucker Carlson went on a rant about censorship after one of his tweets was removed for violating Twitter rules.
Conservative satirical site The Babylon Bee tweeted an image along with a link to their article naming Assistant Secretary of Health Dr Rachel Levine, a transgender woman, as their “man of the year”.
Dr Levine was named as a USA Today Woman of the Year, prompting critical articles on several conservative sites.
Babylon Bee CEO Seth Dillon said on Sunday that they had been flagged for “hateful content,” but added that they won’t remove the content because “truth is not hate speech”.
Carlson tweeted out screenshots of the Babylon Bee tweet and another post from conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
“But wait. Both these tweets are true,” the Fox News host said.
The tweet was labelled by the platform stating that it violated Twitter rules.
“Our national conversation about transgenderism is completely defined by censorship, by making you shut up, not allowing you to notice the obvious is why they’re doing it,” Carlson said on Fox News on Wednesday night.
“There’s no attempt to persuade you. There’s no fact-based argument. You can’t respond, ‘Oh, so men can become women just by wishing it,” he added. “So, tell us how that works. Can I stop male pattern baldness the same way? Can I grow six inches? Please explain how this remarkable new power the trans community has discovered might apply to me. Can I do it too?’”
“Their first move always is censorship and their second move, inevitably, is punishment. We learn that again last night when we were suspended from Twitter,” Carlson added.
“‘We have determined that this account violated the Twitter rules specifically for violating our rules against hateful conduct,’ Twitter wrote to us. The only way out of Twitter jail was to delete our tweet, to pretend we never said it, to cleanse America’s conscience by just whiting out the past,” he said.
“What was our crime, by the way? Well, we dared to highlight two accounts that Twitter has banned: Charlie Kirk and The Babylon Bee. There was nothing hateful about either one. We’d say look them up, but you can’t because they’re gone now, but both merely noted that biological sex is fixed at birth,” Carlson said.
“This has been universally acknowledged by those homo sapiens for at least 300,000 years. So, it was a factual statement, but on Twitter, as in our public life, truth is no defence,” he added.
Twitter users were quick to mock the Fox News host for his comments.
“All we’re missing now is live ground coverage of ‘The WAP’ with Ben Shapiro… I’m all ears!” one Twitter user wrote.
“Expert Gynaecologist Doctor Carlson chimes in,” another added.
“Tucker needs a 12-step program - he is endorsing the views of crazies like Kirk,” a third said.
“Tucker Carlson is too stupid for words,” another account holder said.
