> I appreciate the efforts Musk has made towards pushing back against the censorship of language that it seems like everyone nowadays wants to enforce, regardless of their background.
Musks censorship is well-documented. There are only two ways one could sincerely make this argument:
- by fully ignoring Musks censorship
- by accepting it as good
Neither option makes the commenter seem honest or well-meaning, hence the downvotes.
Censoring mentions of Mastodon was indeed a terrible move, but he did backtrack on that.
Was there anything else?
If a transgender woman asks to not be referred to as a man, I would argue that use of male pronouns can constitute a slur. It can be a slur even if it's technically correct that they are still a biologically male person.
Calling an openly gay man "a homo" is widely accepted to be a serious slur, even though it's a term derived from Latin and the factual imputation conveyed by the word isn't in dispute.
It doesn't matter if a person happens to fit the technical definition of "cisgender" because slur-ness is never about technical correctness, or whether a word has Latin roots. It's about the reasons why the word was chosen and the purpose it is serving in the conversation.
> The words “cis” or “cisgender” are considered slurs on this platform.
This does mention repeated, targeted harassment, but the "slur-ness" isn't predicated upon it. On Twitter, as it stands right now, "cis" is a slur, as Musk decreed.
The benefit of the doubt I extend is that being "considered slurs on this platform" is a no-op when the platform doesn't have a policy regarding arbitrary use of slur words. So whether a platform considers a word a slur is only relevant when there's a context — in this case, the context of assessing for repeated, targeted harassment.
I can understand this perspective from a non-affected person, but the signal sent to affected minority groups seems very clear to me, and this makes it relevant for any interaction of the minority group with the platform.