Following technical difficulties and a high-profile departure from Twitter, the platform hosted a popular screening of Daily Wire journalist Matt Walsh’s film “What is a Woman?” The documentary, which probes questions about gender, received more than 90 million views on the social media platform.
With the high number of views, the film would have topped the box office standings last week.
Elon Musk greenlit a plan to allow the film to be shown for free for 24 hours.
The Twitter owner received considerable criticism over restrictions placed on the film’s showing on Twitter.
Following the announcement that the film would be shown on the social media platform for 24 hours, the company told the Daily Wire that it would limit its release. Twitter initially labeled the film as “hateful conduct” over content in which a young person was called by non-preferred pronouns.
Musk responded personally to the controversy, saying that the film and its content were “definitely allowed.” He added that not using preferred pronouns is “at most rude and certainly breaks no laws.”
Musk continued, stating that he uses such pronouns personally.
The Daily Wire’s Jeremy Boreing responded to Musk’s tweet and said that the Daily Wire was reaching out to Twitter’s support team in order to see if the film would be further restricted and “whether or not our event tonight will be allowed to proceed unencumbered, and whether or not we will be allowed to purchase the live event page and reach block as originally agreed.”
It turned out that members of the Twitter staff partially censored the film’s release, leading to significant personnel changes.
Two Twitter officials left the company due to the tumult. Twitter’s former head of brand safety and ad quality, A.J. Brown, and the former head of trust and safety Ella Irwin both in relation to the showing of the film.
Following the controversy the Tesla founder retweeted the film, helping to bring considerable attention to the film.
Every parent should watch this https://t.co/pIp6UP6vq8
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 2, 2023
