NBC News journalist Brandy Zadrozny told MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan how pro-Trump Republicans have been threatening teachers and librarians, and are now calling in bomb threats to Boston Children’s Hospital because it treats transgender children with medication and, sometimes, gender affirming surgery:
Like you said, this is an ongoing way of anti-LGBTQ sentiment, the far-right and from the loudest conservatives on Twitter,. And that sentiment has hit libraries. We’ve seen librarians targeted. Schools, we’ve seen kindergarten teachers, and elementary school teachers targeted. And now, we’re heading to children’s hospitals. Literally, these folks have doctors, librarians, school teachers in their target.
The Washington Post reported that Libs of TikTok, a right-wing digital group, and The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh have stirred up vitriol on a Washington D.C. children’s hospital that also treats transgender children:
Children’s hospitals across the U.S. are facing growing threats of violence, driven by an online anti-LGBTQ campaign attacking the facilities for providing care to transgender kids and teens.
Zadrozny said that social media companies are knowingly allowing these threats to continue, which could result in violence:
You know, here’s the problem, it’s that none of these tech companies have a north star when it comes to moderation, right? This is violence. This is harassment. It’s clear what these accounts are doing. But with their policies, they literally have to wait until somebody gets hurt or killed to say, ‘oh, this is the promotion of violence.’ Just like we saw with Jan. 6th. Nothing got Donald Trump kicked off the platform until something dangerous, until violence actually happened. And by then, it’s too late. At this point, the way that we’ve built social media, it’s already been weaponized. And so, even kicking ‘Libs of TikTok’ off now would hardly really do anything. They could still target on another social media platform or another person who just would come up and take ‘Libs of TikTok’s place.’ It happens all the time. I don’t actually see a way out of it.
(Sources: The Washington Post, The Guardian, MSNBC via YouTube, MSNBC/YouTube, Image Credit: Boston Children’s Hospital/YouTube)