Why Matt Walsh’s What Is A Woman? became one of the most successful documentaries of all time

A film on gender ideology has become one of the most successful documentaries of all time after amassing 170 million views on Twitter following a censorship row.

The social media platform applied a ‘hateful content’ label to Matt Walsh’s film What Is A Woman? for failing to use contributors’ preferred pronouns, limiting its distribution.

The film’s publisher The Daily Wire’s appealed to Elon Musk who admitted the decision to censor the documentary was “a mistake by many people at Twitter” and that the film was “definitely allowed.”

Mr Musk tweeted: “Whether or not you agree with using someone’s preferred pronouns, not doing so is at most rude and certainly breaks no laws.

“I should note that I do personally use someone’s preferred pronouns, just as I use someone’s preferred name, simply from the standpoint of good manners.

“However, for the same reason, I object to rude behaviour, ostracism or threats of violence if the wrong pronoun or name is used.”

Twitter’s head of trust and safety, Ella Irwin, subsequently resigned but without stating her reasons for doing so.

For comparison, some 19m viewers watched the final episode of Game of Thrones when it premiered in 2019, and Joe Biden’s last State of the Union address drew 27 million views.

Speaking to TalkTV’s Piers Morgan, Mr Walsh’s said: “If Twitter had decided to keep this film censored, that would set a really dangerous precedent.

“When they first decided to censor it, there was this feeling of: ‘well here we go again’. They don’t want you to talk about it. They don’t want you to acknowledge the basic truth that is being discussed.

“We were just demonetised by YouTube on misgendering grounds a couple of weeks ago. I was happy that this film, on top of dealing with the gender issue, also could succeed in a victory for free speech.”

Piers said: “The whole point of free speech, at heart, is that you should be allowed to offend people.

“You should be allowed to vehemently disagree, or be offensive or rude, and people should be able to tolerate that.

“There is an increasingly hysterical campaign to make us all believe the sky is green and the grass is blue, and that anyone who disagrees is a hateful transphobe and a bigot.

“This is the biggest film in the world right now. It calmly eviscerates this absurdity by allowing the people who advance the looniest arguments to tie themselves in their own knots.”

“It just goes to show the level of exasperation at this relentless campaign to subvert reality and bully anybody who refuses to go along with it.”