Twitter Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk is restoring a string of accounts previously suspended for harassing transgender people, rolling back protections for the LGBTQ community as the country confronts the aftermath of a shooting in a Colorado gay club that left five people dead and dozens wounded.
Advocates say the shooting on Saturday highlights the potential real-world violence that can stem from rhetoric against the trans community. They noted that anti-trans abuse has been mounting on the platform since the shooting.
"Creating this environment of relentless attack and permissible hate, it results in the kinds of things we saw Saturday night in Colorado,” said Cathy Renna, spokeswoman for the National LGBTQ task force. "We cannot carefully step around the fact that you can draw a straight line between these things.”