Is Twitter going off the deep end?

Here's the latest person it's decided to ban:

Come on @Twitter, you’ve got to stop this stuff. https://t.co/K3DWPMHxmn

— Brit Hume (@brithume) May 12, 2019

Ray Blanchard, Ph.D. is no Alex Jones with out-there conspiracy theories.  He's a respected scientist whose research on transgenderism is science-based and consistent with existing research on the reality of gender dysphoria, the psychological disorder that prompts some patients to attempt to change their sex.  He's also quite compassionate toward these individuals, as they are his patients, but his research is premised on hard, fact-based research, such as that there is no changing a person's chromosomes, even if a person has altered his body through surgery.  (This position, by the way, is accepted by many transgender people based on what I've seen on transgender bulletin boards.)  The doctor even supports the idea of transgender surgery despite its patients' high remorse rate and supports allowing them to create a legal fiction to identify with their preferred sex, with a few exceptions such as participation in sports competitions, where those with XY chromosomes will always have an advantage over those with the XX configuration.

In short, he's a moderate, with views well within the mainstream of science.

And Twitter banned him — not for saying anything wild, not for insulting anyone, but for publishing his research.  This is a new low for Twitter's ongoing censorship practices — extending well beyond conservatives now and moving deep into the scientific community.  PJ Media's Tyler O'Neil has an excellent piece describing what is going on here.

This sorry spectacle tells us two things:

One, the only people who would be offended by this research are transgender activist extremists, and obviously, their views are shared by those running Twitter.

And two, Twitter, while under fire for its censorship practices of conservatives, has obviously decided that now is the time to ramp up the game.

That can be the result of only two other things: that it considers Republicans and their rage about this just for show and Republicans paper tigers, or that it seeks to ramp up the censorship to insane levels so that when deal-making time comes, it will be forced to give up fewer concessions.

Either way, it's an attack on scientific inquiry, and it will have a chilling effect on discourse.  That's some contribution to global openness of ideas, Jack.

It's also a cue for Congress to revoke this company's platform status and regulate it now as an edited platform, responsible for every last word that goes out on its site.  That seems to be what's needed now, because this is what Twitter has chosen.  It first came for the fringe players, and now it's moving deep into the world of the established scientists.

For Congress, with this going on, it's long past time to make them "be who they are."