The Netherlands’s first transgender member of parliament said that she is quitting Twitter after a barrage of hateful comments that she says undermine healthy debate.
(Bloomberg) — The Netherlands’s first transgender member of parliament said that she is quitting Twitter after a barrage of hateful comments that she says undermine healthy debate.
Lisa van Ginneken, a member of the Dutch parliament since March last year, said the popular social media website lacks nuance and has become a “place of hate.”
“I no longer want my tweets or likes to fuel this dynamic. I prefer to focus on my task as a member of parliament: monitoring and boosting our government,” she said in a statement on Thursday, in which she shared examples of the messages she has received.
Twitter Inc. and politicians have long struggled with the regulation of hate speech on the platform. Concerns were raised after it was purchased by Elon Musk, a self-styled “free speech absolutist.”
Dutch Finance Minister Sigrid Kaag has spoken out about how difficult it is for women to speak out on social media. Research by the Groene Amsterdammer weekly news magazine revealed last year that Kaag was receiving a hateful tweet about every 15 minutes.
Twitter is a place where “troll armies and hate bots are active to fuel polarization,” said Van Ginneken, a member of the progressive centrist D66 party.
She said she is not worried about being “less visible” as a politician after leaving Twitter and will remain reachable on other social media platforms, for now.
Musk said earlier this month that he will form a content moderation council that includes “widely diverse viewpoints.” But Van Ginneken told Bloomberg in an interview that she does not hold out any hope that Twitter will become a more responsible platform, given his views on free speech.
The lawmaker said that she is urging the Dutch government to speak up about hate speech and that any regulation of social media platforms must take place at a European Union level.
“I’m taking the step to not only free myself from this burden,” she said, “but I hope also to inspire other people to do the same.”
–With assistance from Jillian Deutsch.
(Updates with further comments from Lisa van Ginneken)
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