Elon Musk Quietly Walks Back X's Pronoun Policy And Begins Shadowbanning Accounts For Misgendering After A 50% Drop In Platform Advertising Revenue

Elon Musk has been a controversial figure. For example, he purchased X, formerly Twitter, and unbanned dozens of historically controversial right-wing accounts under the guise of free speech. While the right largely praised these actions, they caused an exodus of advertisers. 

Often, it's not advertisers specifically endorsing certain policies but brands wanting to maintain a clean brand and avoid perceived favoritism. If a company’s ads show up on an anti-transgender post, it might be perceived as biased and result in alienating consumers. While some might argue this shows a bias toward left-wing policies, it can be defended by general policies supporting diversity and inclusion of humans of all creeds. 

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This isn't exclusive to right-wing policies, as more left-leaning social networks like Reddit still struggle to maintain a profitable advertising business. For example, a recent surge in anti-semitism, which can happen on both sides of the political spectrum because of the ongoing Israel-Palestine conflict, has concerned brands across nearly all social media platforms. 

One specifically contentious point for all parties has been X's pronoun policy. Previously, it was a bannable offense to use someone's incorrect pronouns. When Musk took over, he reversed the policy in mid-2023 allowing for anyone to misgender individuals on the site without consequences.

According to the new policy, called Use of Prior Names and Pronouns, X will "reduce the visibility of posts that purposefully use different pronouns to address that what that person uses for themselves." If someone is thought to violate this rule, the "target" will determine whether a violation occurred. 

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In short, people who purposefully misgender individuals will be shadowbanned. 

Musk defended this policy change on Friday stating, "This is just about repeated, targeted harassment of a particular person." Later, when asked about reversing the policy, Musk stated he was "looking into it." 

This came as a surprise to some as Musk has been an outspoken critic of ongoing pronoun norms on several occasions. In mid-April 2023, Musk posted, "Pronouns are virtue-signaling, so inevitably, as with all virtue-signaling, they will be used as a shield by bad humans." 

In December 2022, Musk posted, "Yeah, I'm not a fan of pronouns when someone is giving every possible visual cue for he or she, but then still insists on telling you exactly what you expect." 

In July 2020, Musk posted, "Pronouns Suck." And as early as December 2023, Musk posted, "People can't even remember the names of everyone they met last week, let alone their pronouns. The reality of pronouns in bio is simply signaling that you're in the woke cult." 

Some have speculated the reason for this is a move to start catering to advertisers. Musk has been outspoken for several months about not caring how advertisers think the platform should be run. In November at a Dealbook conference, Musk told interviewer Andrew Ross Sorkin that advertisers can "go f*ck yourself" after announcements to boycott the platform.

This comes at a time when X is seeing advertising revenue drop as much as 50% overall and 60% in the U.S. 

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