Twitter Says It Blocked ‘Uncle Tim’ Trend after Tim Scott’s Speech
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Twitter stepped in early Thursday morning to block the “Uncle Tim” label that began trending following Senator Tim Scott’s rebuttal to President Biden’s address to a Joint Session of Congress, a company spokesman told National Review.
A Twitter spokesperson that the platform decided to block a trend calling black Republican Tim Scott, who gave the GOP , “Uncle Tim.”
“This is in line with our policies on Trends, specifically: ‘We want Trends to promote healthy conversations on Twitter. This means that at times, we may not allow or may temporarily prevent content from appearing in Trends until more context is available. This includes Trends that violate The Twitter Rules,’” a Twitter spokesperson told National Review in an email.
Scott called the trend “upsetting” and “so disappointing” on Thursday morning, saying that it shows the left “are literally attacking the color of my skin.”
“You cannot step down out of your lane, according to the liberal elite left,” he continued.
Twitter did not say when it made the decision to block the trend, which numerous commentators made note of late Wednesday and early Thursday.
Tim Scott: Progressives make race-based attacks on me because they don’t like my politics
Progressive Twitter: Let’s go out and prove it pic.twitter.com/AHCX9809Rl
— Rich Lowry (@RichLowry) April 29, 2021
Twitter is choosing to trend a racist attack from the left on Sen. Tim Scott, the black Republican senator from South Carolina. pic.twitter.com/kpyPOHnuXJ
— Mollie (@MZHemingway) April 29, 2021
Sen. @votetimscott is an honorable man. He's fought for Black Americans his entire life. HBCU funding, Criminal Justice & Police Reform, School Choice & Opportunity Zones.
Bigotry should always be denounced. Biden & Democrats should denounce the disgusting use of "Uncle Tim”! pic.twitter.com/Lw01wgLYxX
— PARIS (@PARISDENNARD) April 29, 2021
That this racist term trended during Sen. Tim Scott's speech is as revealing as it is repugnant, as is the large-scale liberal silence that Twitter promoted a racist attack.
A world in which people of color are forced by racist insults to subscribe to one ideology is grotesque. pic.twitter.com/NDksUEriHn
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) April 29, 2021
While the platform did not specify which rules the trend broke, Twitter’s policy on “Hateful Conduct” prohibits “repeated and/or non-consensual slurs, epithets, racist and sexist tropes, or other content that degrades someone.”
Scott said Wednesday night during his response to Biden’s address that he has “experienced the pain of discrimination” and “a different kind of intolerance.”
“I get called ‘Uncle Tom’ and the n-word by progressives, by liberals,” he said. “Just last week, a national newspaper suggested my family’s poverty was actually privilege because a relative owned land generations before my time,” referencing a Washington Post “fact check” of his family history.
But Scott also stated that “we’ve made tremendous progress” and that “America is not a racist country.”
“It’s backwards to fight discrimination with different types of discrimination. And it’s wrong to try to use our painful past to dishonestly shut down debates in the present,” he argued.
