In case you hadn’t noticed, I spend a lot of time on Twitter.

It is a hazard of the job. There is no place but Twitter to get breaking news when it happens, and a sense of how the plugged-in people respond to it. It is also a wonderful place to pick up on non-MSM stories since by definition they are not being fed to us by the Establishment.

Twitter is, of course, also  where you will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy, but them’s the breaks.

Every once in a while you find something that is nearly perfect. The Babylon Bee headlines, for instance, are close to perfect in capturing the absurdity of modern life. So perfect, in fact, that when they were stolen from us by the censors at Twitter, Elon Musk bought the company just to bring them back. The $44 billion tweets.

From there we got the Twitter Files and proof that the government has an enormous and unconstitutional censorship program aimed at American citizens.

All because the Babylon Bee is hilarious.

At other times a tweet can capture in one sentence a phenomenon that is worth pointing out, as in this one:

The article lists exactly zero examples of the supposed “hate speech”, FYI. https://t.co/FrcTtBgmw7

— Amy Curtis (@RantyAmyCurtis) July 13, 2023

Amy Curtis, a nurse whom I have never met, somehow managed to point out something that is so obvious that almost nobody notices it, and it can create a gestalt shift.

The Reuters story is meant to elicit both empathy and outrage. While most of us disapprove of men being in and winning beauty pageants for women, very few want “hate speech” directed at anybody. I disapprove of transgender “women” invading the spaces of biological women, I cringe when people get nasty. Both because it is unnecessary and counterproductive.

It generates stories like this, which create sympathy for something I oppose.

Except, as Amy points out: the story is entirely made up. The only reason it was written was to create the headline and the impression that there is a wave of hate being directed at Miss Netherlands.

How do I know that it was made up? Because Reuters, a “reputable” news organization, cannot and does not try to give one jot of evidence to support it, despite giving the impression that it is everywhere.

AMSTERDAM, July 13 (Reuters) – Rikkie Valerie Kolle, the first transgender woman to be crowed Miss Netherlands, once saw her success in the pageant as a symbol of her nation’s openness. Then she was bombarded with hate online.

Kolle, 22, said she became a target of hate speech after winning the 94-year-old competition last week. Now, she will go on to participate in the Miss Universe pageant. If she wins she will be the first transgender woman to claim that title.

Kolle said in an interview that she was trying to concentrate on the good, rather than hurtful comments on social media.

“I thought we were really accepting…. in the Netherlands, but the hate comments show the other side of our society. I hope that’s a wake up call,” she told Reuters.

“For now, I fully ignore it. I focus on the good things coming my way.”

The negative comments were unprovoked, she continued, adding people were insulting her for being herself.

So, let’s see. “She was bombarded with hate online.”

Online. Seems easy enough to find an example. How about ONE? Hell, I could probably find one if I looked hard enough. If there were enough to “bombard” Kolle, one would think a single one could be included in the article, no less a Twitchy thread to demonstrate the phenomenon.

So, hmmm. What could she be referring to?

Perhaps it is people like me who oppose men invading women’s spaces. In this case what they are complaining about is the debate over transgender people taking over women’s spaces, which is not “hate speech,” but a legitimate debate.

Reuters is simply repeating the claim that not giving in to every demand and whim of transgender activists is “hate,” just as using the “wrong” pronoun is “violence” and “genocide.”

In other words, Reuters is making an ideological statement on a public policy/cultural issue, not reporting the news at all. Hate speech would be “I hope you die a painful death”–a variation of which is directed at J.K. Rowling about a thousand times a day. Or “punch a TERF,” which is a standard throwaway line for alphabet activists.

Hate speech is not “I think beauty pageants should remain female only,” as Reuters wants you to believe. This is why they don’t give any of the examples–after all, 70% of their readers or so agree with that statement, so it doesn’t serve their purposes.

Almost nobody reads entire news stories these days, so the headlines matter most. And this story was written almost solely to get that headline in front of people, so they walk away feeling bad not for the women who were cheated, but for the man who cheated them.

That was the point; the facts are irrelevant.