Twitter Backs Out Of Deal For Daily Wire Documentary 'What Is A Woman?' Citing 'Hateful Conduct' And 'Misgendering' But The Show Will Go On

On Thursday morning, Jeremy Boreing, Co-CEO of the Daily Wire, took to Twitter to share the shocking news that the online social media platform has pulled out of a deal with the conservative news site to premiere the Matt Walsh documentary ‘What is a Woman.’ 

‘What Is a Woman’ was a smash-hit documentary where Walsh went around interviewing a multitude of different people from all walks of life to answer the titular question. Unsurprisingly, the film received notable criticism and protest over its conservative and anti-LGBTQ messaging.

Boreing took to his Twitter page to share the news in a sixteen-tweet thread, stating that the social media platform canceled the deal over “two instances of ‘misgendering.’”
 

Twitter canceled a deal with @realdailywire to premiere What is a Woman? for free on the platform because of two instances of “misgendering.”

I’m not kidding.

Here's what happened:🧵1/16

— Jeremy Boreing (@JeremyDBoreing) June 1, 2023

The Daily Wire founder laid out the intent to share the documentary for free for 24 hours to commemorate the anniversary of the film's release and share it with even more people. He highlighted the choice of doing so on Twitter as the platform had notable “recent commitments to free speech, [and] we thought it would be the perfect place to distribute the film and drive the conversation forward.”
 

3/16 With Twitter’s recent commitments to free speech, we thought it would be the perfect place to distribute the film and drive the conversation forward on one of the most important topics of our day.

— Jeremy Boreing (@JeremyDBoreing) June 1, 2023

Boreing wrote that the company was initially very enthusiastic about the idea and offered an opportunity to host a dedicated event page for the film and promote it to every Twitter user in the first ten hours. The Daily Wire accepted and signed the deal, to which Twitter then asked to watch the film to better understand the content.

Then the entire thing fell apart, as Twitter revoked the deal and labeled the documentary as “‘hateful conduct’” due to the “‘misgendering’” in the film. 
 

6/16 After reviewing the film, though, Twitter let us know that not only could we no longer purchase the package they offered, they would no longer provide us any support and would actually limit the reach of the film and label it as “hateful conduct” because of “misgendering.”

— Jeremy Boreing (@JeremyDBoreing) June 1, 2023

Boreing and Twitter engaged in a brief back and forth where the Daily Wire founder reminded the social media platform that they removed their ‘misgendering’ policy from the terms of service and that advocating for that would be going against their free speech commitment. 
Twitter clarified that “they only removed ‘misgendering’ from their policy because they didn’t need to be that specific, but that they still consider ‘misgendering’ abuse and harassment,” offering the news website the chance to edit the film to comply with the standards. Of course, Boreing declined such an offer.
 

9/16 Twitter clarified they only removed “misgendering” from their policy because they didn’t need to be that specific, but that they still consider “misgendering” abuse and harassment.

They gave us the opportunity to edit the film to comply.

We declined.

— Jeremy Boreing (@JeremyDBoreing) June 1, 2023

Boeing finished his thread lamenting the impasse and advocating for changes in policy, citing free speech beliefs and the reasons that new Twitter owner Elon Musk gave when he purchased the platform.

The Daily Wire CEO later wrote that the documentary will be airing on Twitter on Thursday evening irrespective of whether or not Twitter promotes the showing.
 

Join us tonight. At this point, anything could happen…

https://t.co/O71NMIbbyU

— Jeremy Boreing (@JeremyDBoreing) June 1, 2023

It’s very unfortunate to see such a major walk-back on what seemed to be such a good direction for Twitter. It’s not possible to allow free speech while censoring aspects that are deemed controversial. There are clear lines for censoring, but when you have current social issues that are still hotly debated, censoring one side is inherently anti-free speech.