Social Platforms Manipulating the Social Contract

"Because this is a trans individual they are untouchable ... they are allowed to mock and taunt me about my biology, they can say whatever crude things they want. But when it comes to me wanting to take a shot back at that person and wanting to stand up for myself -- or for my womanhood so to speak -- I am permanently kicked off."
"The private corporation [Twitter] is allowed to censor speech, sure, but I think it's a matter of looking at what they are censoring."
"There's always these people who celebrate when someone is banned from a social media platform. Your instincts should not be to celebrate when someone you don't like is vaporized, because now  you're not challenging your own ideas, you're not facing any opposition, it just turns into an echo chamber."
Lindsay Shepherd, free speech activist

When Lindsay Shepherd was still part of the student body at Wilfred Laurier University, she was also a teaching assistant. She had been inspired, as a free-speech activist, to admire the resistance of University of Toronto Professor Jordan Peterson who had posted a number of YouTube videos arguing among other things the absurdity of a legislated set of pronouns to be used when addressing the lesbian and transgender population. During one of her lectures she had played a video of a TVO interview on a popular show, The Agenda interviewing Dr. Peterson.

This interview was post-reaction to adding gender identity to the Canadian Human Rights Act. At the height of the controversy two years ago, Dr. Peterson explained his aversion as a psychologist to political correctness in the issue of transgender and LGBTQ2 rights: non-gendered pronouns — especially ones that have been created like “ze” and “zir” — which he said "compel the use of a particular kind of ideological language ... For me, personally, that’s the sticking point. I think that’s dangerous language. I don’t trust the people who formulated it. And I’m not going to be their mouthpiece because I know what they’re like."

Lindsey Shepherd, subsequent to airing the video of the interview with Dr. Peterson, was called to a disciplinary meeting with three of the university's top administrators who belittled her, intimidated her and accused her of being 'transphobic' in introducing a class of first-year undergrads to Dr. Peterson's position as a way to pique their interest in examining issues from a total perspective. She had the presence of mind to record the entire event with her supervisor and two other faculty administrators and when she made it public a storm of controversy enveloped her just as it had Dr. Peterson.

People gathering for a rally in support of Lindsay Shepherd on the campus of Wilfrid Laurier University, November 24, 2017.  Photo: Cole Burston

She has made headlines again, two years later, as a free-speech advocate and activist for having been permanently banned from Twitter this week which has censored her sympathies and expressions in a dispute between herself and a transgender woman, Jessica Yaniv. Ms. Yaniv, who also considers him/herself an activist on the opposite spectrum to Lindsay Shepherd had rudely disparaged Lindsay who responded to a nasty provocation. The great minds at Twitter adjudicating the issue exiled Lindsay but not the transgendered person whose defamatory, disgusting comments warranted discipline.

"I heard @realDonaldTrump is building a wall inside of your uterus aka your 'reproductive abnormality' hopefully the wall works as intended", tweeted Yaniv, and Shepherd responded: "Of course, he thinks reproductive issues are something to be mocked. This is how men who don't have functional romantic relationships speak. But ... I guess that's kinda what you are!", she responded. "At least I have a uterus, you fat ugly man."

And it is this exchange, with the emphasis on the response, not the provocation, that motivated Twitter to ban Lindsay Shepherd from their platform. This kind of action by Twitter in response to opinions and sentiments posted by platform users that Twitter hierarchy considers on the right spectrum of the political and social arena, is all too common and increasingly dramatically emphasized by actions to eliminate the presence of those they consider to be 'right-wing'.

Yaniv describes herself on Twitter as an LGBTQ2SIA and human rights activist, and it was not evidently seen by the platform seen as necessarily proportional to banish the transgender 'activist', yet imperative that the 'right-wing' activist be neutralized. And nor is Lindsay Shepherd the only Twitter user that Yaniv has been instrumental in having banned from Twitter. Canadian feminist writer Meghan Murphy's account suffered a similar fate when she tweeted comments such as "men aren't women".

Jessica Yaniv‏ @trustednerd Jun 16

One proud lesbian. I'll never give up fighting for human rights equality. #LGBTQoftwitter