X Accused of Suspending Hundreds of LGBTQ Profiles
KESQ that the company’s several dozen accounts on X, including members of its #ILoveGay network, were all taken down at the same time without warning.“I got this flood of emails from my followers, and I’m like, ‘What is happening?’ At the end of the day, we still don’t exactly know what’s going on,” he said.In a July 9 post on Pink Media’s website, Skallerud wrote that the mass suspension was due to what X claimed was a “user report” that claimed the accounts “had broken one of the X rules.”“Which rule we may have violated remains a mystery, but 5 days later, we are still down with no hopes of having our X profiles reinstated,” he wrote.Brad Fuhr, CEO of radio station KGAY and the Gay Desert Guide, reportedly received a message from X telling him that several accounts he ran — including accounts dedicated to promoting LGBTQ spaces in the Coachella Valley and promoting the area as a potential attraction for tourists — had been permanently banned.“Our digital marketing agency Oasis Marketing Group, ‘OMG PSP,‘ that one was suspended,” Fuhr told KESQ. “And then we noticed, of course, that the ‘I Love Gay Palm Springs’ account was also suspended [in addition to Gay Desert Guide].
So in one fell swoop, those three that we rely on heavily here had all been had all been taken down.”Other accounts that were allegedly taken down include Alan Beck’s FunMaps and Visit Britain’s GayBritain account.Skallerud said that Pink Media had “always kept it not only very positive, but very clean,” avoiding adult content or anything that was objectionable.“We couldn’t help but to think maybe it was just because we had too much visibility,” he told KESQ. “In June, and it was Pride Month, and maybe it annoyed someone somewhere along the way that a didn’t like LGBTQ content like that being amplified in that way.”Although Skallerud has appealed the suspensions of about 75 accounts, he hasn’t heard back from X about the possibility of getting them restored.“From a business angle, we were.
