‘Trans,’ ‘groomer,’ ‘drag’ and ‘amen’: Musk will push for X (Twitter) to stop demonetizing certain words

"This list needs to be trimmed." Elon Musk claims he is working to stop X (Twitter) from demonetizing posts that include certain words, such as "trans" and "groomer." Musk said this during a live conversation held on the platform. He mentioned that the problem dates back to previous management and that it could be attributed more to incompetence than to malice.

During the panel, Musk alluded to a list published by Chaya Raichik, founder of the popular account Libs of TikTok. Raichik found 10 words that demonetize content, although she warned that the number could grow: "drag queen," "porn," "groomer," "innocence/innocent," "trans," "LGBTQ," "police," “non-binary,” “ugly” and “amen.”

Unprofitable words

Although the link between words like "ugly" and "police" may not be intuitive, what unites is advertisers' fear of any content deemed controversial. As Raichik explains in an article, the pressure comes from progressive activists to suppress conservative voices:

Raichik explained why some of these words fell out of favor, although she acknowledged that some were absurd or confusing, with "amen" being by far the most shocking. "Drag queen," for example, was likely demonetized after conservative users began to use it to criticize trans events in schools, like the so-called Drag Queen Story Hour.

Musk said he was surprised by some of the things considered "bad words" by his platform. He also stated that having a list of these words for advertisers was not worth it for X (Twitter). They represent a small part of the market and are too likely to shy away from topics they hastily label as controversial: "A loud noise in the room scares advertisers."

Musk in action

Chaya Raichik assured that writing seven of the 10 words she included in the original list no longer demonetized publications. Musk claimed to be fixing the remaining ones.