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--:-- Host John Bickley: Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter has sparked both criticism and celebration as the billionaire has fought to make it America's leading pro-speech platform. Live by the sword, die by the sword. Live by censorship, die by censorship. Now, new data shows that traffic on X is up dramatically under his leadership.
--:-- Host John Bickley: I'm Daily Wire editor-in-chief John Bickley with Georgia Howe. It's Friday, December 22nd, and this is Morning Wire. The UK tells teachers they do not have to use students' preferred pronouns and should not hide gender transitions from parents. This is a very serious thing. Social transitioning, as we've described in the guidance, is not a neutral act. And it is something that parents should be made aware of.
--:-- Host John Bickley: What's inspired the new guidance and how will it affect the education system? And several high-profile New York Times writers are pushing back against growing political bias at the paper of record. Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know.
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--:-- Host Georgia Howe: hold for no money out of pocket. That's wire to 989898 to claim your free silver on qualifying purchases now.
--:-- Host Georgia Howe: A new report finds that traffic on X, formerly known as Twitter, is up 22% since Elon Musk took over last year. Here to explain what might be driving the increase in traffic is Daily Wire culture reporter Megan Basham.
--:-- Megan Basham: So, I feel like I've seen some conflicting reports on just how Twitter or X is doing lately. Where did this latest analysis come from and what did they find?
--:-- Megan Basham: So the latest report comes from Advanced Television, and that's a UK-based firm that's been around since about 2001. And about this time last year, they were forecasting that Twitter would in fact lose about 32 million users by 2024 due to what they called technical issues and offensive content.
--:-- Megan Basham: Well, the report they released this week finds that that forecast was wrong. From April 2022 to November that same year, between the time that it was announced that Elon Musk was buying the platform and his completion of the purchase, Twitter was on a downward trend, losing about 8% of its traffic.
--:-- Megan Basham: So you might expect that a lot of analysis reflected that. But as the app rebranded to X and added new features and changed its content moderation policies, traffic has actually grown. In November last year, when Musk took over, it had just over 61 million visits a day. You flash forward to last month, it had nearly 75 million visits.
--:-- Megan Basham: Now, that measurement is only browser visits, not app data. So it's only measuring a fraction of X's usage. But there are some other positive signs. Another data analytics company Domo reported that X posts per minute have increased from 347 to 360 year over year.
--:-- Megan Basham: And while the rebranding to X was a pretty controversial move it does appear to have attracted plenty of consumer attention Searches for Create X Account are up 143 while searches for Delete X Account are only up 66%. So more people seem to want to try the app now than quit it.
--:-- Megan Basham: Advanced Television called these numbers surprising, and they said they indicate that Despite all the controversy and split opinions on the platform, it's now the most popular that it's been in 18 months. Musk just said about this new report, quote, growth is strong.
--:-- Megan Basham: Now, for people who don't use the platform, what kind of changes did Musk make? Well, on the feature side, probably the biggest was creating paid tiers that unlock new capabilities. So those tiers range from $3 to $16. And some of the features are the ability to publish posts that are much longer than the old standard of 280 characters.
--:-- Megan Basham: And you can also post much longer videos. So we're now seeing some content creators posting full two-hour videos. Posts from premium users are prioritized in the feed and in the search. And then there's the big one that a lot of users, including me, were clamoring for for years, and that was the ability to edit tweets.
--:-- Megan Basham: But even if you're not paying for those kind of features, the big one is the change in content moderation. And that affects everybody, regardless of whether they have a premium account or not. So Musk, as we know, pledged to stop moderating political speech and said that while he would limit the reach of posts that might be branded as hate speech on other platforms, users would not be suspended or banned, provided that their content wasn't illegal.
--:-- Megan Basham: In fact, this is what he said during an interview in Italy recently. Free speech is only meaningful if you allow people you don't like to say things you don't like. That's how you know it's working. Because once you start to censor people you don't like saying things you don't like, it's only a matter of time before that censorship turns on you.
--:-- Megan Basham: Along with that has been that introduction of community notes. And that's sort of a crowdsourced fact-checking process that attaches the fact checks to questionable posts rather than remove the posts.
--:-- Megan Basham: Now, what about advertisers? I know X has lost some pretty big names recently, but are these numbers helping to win back some of those big companies? You know, it's hard to tell. You typically see those very big companies like your Walmart, your IBMs, your Disneys. They'll announce when they're leaving because of concerns over objectionable content, but they don't necessarily issue press releases when they come back.
--:-- Megan Basham: So either way, Musk seems to be holding his ground. A couple of weeks ago after he offered what I think we can call some pretty choice, unrepeatable words to Disney chief Bob Iger, the X safety team posted a statement saying, and I'm quoting, above everything, including profit, X works to protect the public's right to free speech.
--:-- Megan Basham: But what I can tell you is that all of those brands are currently posting to their official X accounts. Right. And that's telling in and of itself.
--:-- Host Georgia Howe: Thanks for reporting, Megan.
--:-- Megan Basham: Anytime.
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--:-- Host Georgia Howe: ZBiotics.com slash WIRE to get 15% off your first order with code WIRE at checkout. That's ZBiotics.com slash WIRE today.
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--:-- Host Georgia Howe: New government guidance in England says teachers and students will not be compelled to use students' preferred pronouns. Daily Wire investigative reporter Maraida Lordi is here with the details.
--:-- Maraida Lordi: Hi, Georgette. Yes, so the UK Education Department issued this gender transition guidance document for schools on Tuesday, and it applies to schools in England. The document itself has several components. One major section relates to parents.
--:-- Maraida Lordi: The document says, quote, Parents should not be excluded from decisions taken by a school or college relating to requests for a child to socially transition. It also says the views of the child's parents should carry great weight and that parental consent is expected to be required in the vast majority of cases.
--:-- Maraida Lordi: As a reminder, social transition can involve a student using a new name, new pronouns, different clothing, and using the bathrooms or playing on the sports teams of the opposite sex. Importantly, the document calls gender ideology itself a contested belief.
--:-- Maraida Lordi: So what is the suggested protocol for when kids question their gender at school? So the official guidance says the school should notify parents and encourage the child to talk to their parents themselves.
--:-- Maraida Lordi: It advises a cautious approach that includes a period of watchful waiting. Parents should only be left out of the situation in the exceptionally rare cases where involving them would put the child at significant risk of harm.
--:-- Maraida Lordi: The school should take even greater caution with elementary-age children who should not be referred to by pronouns different from their sex, and there should be very few exceptions with this age group, the guidance says.
--:-- Maraida Lordi: Also, importantly, when determining whether to support a gender transition, the adults involved should consider social factors like whether the child was influenced by social media or peers, whether they feel pressured to conform to sex stereotypes, whether they are questioning their sexual orientation, and whether they have special needs.
--:-- Maraida Lordi: The guidance also addresses the fact that allowing students to transition has effects on fellow students that should be considered too. This has been a big point with gender ideology critics both in the UK and here in the US.
--:-- Maraida Lordi: They say many of these children who want to transition have been influenced by their environment. Now, here in the US, we've had a lot of controversy over trans-identifying kids in bathrooms or on different sports teams. Does this guidance address any of those things?
--:-- Maraida Lordi: Yes, it addresses both, actually. For bathrooms, it says children should use the bathrooms and locker rooms of their biological sex. If a child is distressed by this, they can arrange to use a separate facility.
--:-- Maraida Lordi: Regarding sports, the UK guidance says kids should be separated by biological sex when physical differences threaten the safety of children. It actually adds that there can be no exception to this since boys are generally stronger, larger, and heavier than girls and pose a safety risk to girls.
--:-- Maraida Lordi: The guidance also addresses sleeping arrangements. it says no child should be allowed to share a room with a child of the opposite sex. Also, all boys and all girls schools are allowed to refuse to admit students of the opposite sex.
--:-- Maraida Lordi: Overall, the document is a resounding rejection of gender ideology in schools on just about every front.
--:-- Host Georgia Howe: Yeah. Now, so this is radically different from what we're seeing in our K-12 schools here in the U.S. Right. Why is it playing out so differently in England?
--:-- Maraida Lordi: Well, one quick answer is that Europe may be a few years ahead of us on this issue. They saw an explosion of trans-identifying kids before we did, and now they're pumping the brakes.
--:-- Maraida Lordi: So the UK school guidance has actually been years in the making. It's been expected since 2018. Well, it's going to be interesting to see what the response is to this and whether other countries follow suit.
--:-- Host Georgia Howe: Maureen, thanks for reporting.
--:-- Maraida Lordi: Thanks, Georgia.
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--:-- Host Georgia Howe: This week, members of New Guild CWA, the parent company of the union that represents New York Times journalists, formed an independent caucus to push back against bias at the Grey Lady.
--:-- Host Georgia Howe: The organizers of the group led by Times writers but not limited to them include Pulitzer Prize winner Megan Toohey as well as Julian Barnes and Emily Bazelon The move comes amid a lot of tension over the past few years at the paper
--:-- Host Georgia Howe: Here to discuss is Daily Wire contributor David Marcus.
--:-- David Marcus: Morning. The reason given for pulling the trigger on this right now was a pair of recent Zoom meetings in which News Guild allegedly pushed for the Times to at least potentially issue a call for a ceasefire in Gaza.
--:-- David Marcus: The creators of the independent caucus viewed this as a violation of neutrality that could potentially even put war correspondents in danger. But listen, this had been brewing for some time.
--:-- David Marcus: Listeners might recall that back in February, hundreds of Times contributors signed an open letter criticizing the paper's coverage of the trans issue as transphobic.
--:-- David Marcus: This included direct attacks on a viral piece written for the New York Times Magazine by Bazelon. She was really accused of presenting both sides of the argument regarding trans youth, something that her critics believed was harmful to the trans community.
--:-- David Marcus: Right. This comes on the heels of a rather stunning essay in The Economist by former Times opinion page editor James Bennett. He described an institution that's really lost its way ideologically.
--:-- David Marcus: Do his criticisms dovetail with those of the independent caucus? They do indeed.
--:-- David Marcus: A full disclosure, I wrote a few columns for Bennett at the Times before he was forced out of his job back in 2020 when he approved an op-ed by Senator Tom Cotton calling for the use of the National Guard during the George Floyd riots.
--:-- David Marcus: There was tremendous outrage from the newsroom and from Bennett's telling he was informed he could either resign or be fired in the aftermath.
--:-- David Marcus: In the piece, he argues that the paper was always liberal in Bend, but now it is in fact illiberal, preferring really to silence some unfavored opinions.
--:-- David Marcus: The bias was so pervasive that Bennett describes serious conversations about putting trigger warnings on potential columns written by conservatives for the editors.
--:-- David Marcus: What he describes sounds less like the nation's leading news institution and more like a meeting of the Democratic Socialists of America Club on a college campus.
--:-- David Marcus: As we've discussed many times on the show, trust in news media is at an all-time low. Some surveys say that 70% of Americans do not trust the news.
--:-- David Marcus: Is this the kind of move that could push the needle in the other direction? We should hope so.
--:-- David Marcus: I think on some level, those behind this effort are serious people with serious journalistic standards who feel they're being embarrassed by the antics of some progressive journalists and outlets.
--:-- David Marcus: What they realize is that owing to the First Amendment, the only entity that can regulate journalism is the industry itself. And the only enforcement tool it has is reputational.
--:-- David Marcus: Their goal is to set standards for themselves that they can agree to be held accountable for in the hope of rebuilding that public trust.
--:-- David Marcus: It's a small step, but it could be significant. At the very least, we now have Times employees and former employees who are willing to admit that there's a serious problem here.
--:-- David Marcus: Has the group that started this caucus faced any blowback from other Times employees for forming it?
--:-- David Marcus: Thus far, no, but it only just started up in the last few days and, importantly, is open to journalists at other news outlets as well as the Times, so we could see its influence grow.
--:-- David Marcus: Any pushback will likely depend on how successful the group is in making actual change at our big papers. If it's a coffee clutch and mostly puts out white papers, look for this to blow over.
--:-- David Marcus: But if the group can get significant buy-in from members and really start to impact editorial choices, then this could be the beginning of a battle for the soul of the profession of journalism.
--:-- David Marcus: Yeah, a battle long time in the making.
--:-- Host Georgia Howe: Dave, thanks for joining us.
--:-- David Marcus: Thanks for having me.
--:-- Host Georgia Howe: That's all the time we've got this morning. Thanks for waking up with us. We'll be back later this afternoon with more news you need to know.
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--:-- Host Georgia Howe: Birch Gold: Text "WIRE" to 989898 for your no-cost, no-obligation information kit.
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