By Steve Dinneen
Graham Linehan, the creator of Father Ted now best known for his opposition to trans rights, has been allowed back onto Twitter after serving yet another ban for breaking the platform’s rules over hate speech and making threats.
He was furiously tweeting again just hours after he was banned for a tweet in which he joked about killing trans activists at a controversial women’s rights activist event in Belfast called Let Women Speak.
The tweet Linenan was banned for read: “Durr imm gonna kill em. Fuck off Daniel you mens [sic] rights activist.”
Linehan – who uses the username @glinner – was “permanently” banned from the platform in 2020 for “repeated violations of our rules against hateful conduct and platform manipulation”.
The former comedian had made thousands of anti trans comments and personal attacks but the straw that broke the camel’s back was a reply to a Women’s Institute tweet wishing trans people a happy Pride weekend, to which he responded “men aren’t women tho”.
He was reinstated when Elon Musk bought Twitter last year, ushering in a wave of reinstatements of previously banned figures including Kanye West and Donald Trump, with Musk claiming to be a “free speech absolutist”.
In a blog post Linehan said: “Someone wrote me a stupid message. Can’t remember exactly what it was, the usual pompous pearl-clutching from the new religious police, along with a demand I ‘explain’ how I wanted to ‘punish’ someone or other, so I sarcastically replied.
“I get reported all the time by trans rights activists but I thought Elon’s sweep had removed the bad actors within the company. Apparently there’s a few still about because my two appeals have been denied. One would think the “Durr” made it clear what I was doing but evidently not.”
Linehan has by his own admission completely destroyed his career over his stance on trans rights, with no major production companies willing to work with the former golden boy of British comedy and Father Ted owner Hat Trick refusing to let him create a musical of the show.
Deplatforming people with extreme views has been the most effective way of shutting them up, with the likes of Milo Yiannopoulos and even Alex Jones struggling to stay relevant.
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