Some see it as their duty to fight back against unjust laws/rules. You and I might do it by breaking terms of service, Musk does it by purchasing the platform and adjusting the terms. Two sides of the same coin really, only difference being which end the agency is coming from.

That's like agreeing to take your shoes off when entering a building, leaving your shoes on, and then complaining when the employees/owner/whatever asks you to leave if you're not going to take them off. If you think a rule is stupid, then rebel against it by not agreeing to it

>Why would they agree to a ToS that clearly lays out things like "don't intentionally misgender people"

Where in the ToS is this explicitly stated, and when was it added there?

Here: https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/hateful-condu...

Don't know about the TOS, but there's been an option for reporting misgendering in the report menu for a while now. Maybe a year-ish?

The ToS says:

> We reserve the right to remove Content that violates the User Agreement, including for example, copyright or trademark violations or other intellectual property misappropriation, impersonation, unlawful conduct, or harassment. Information regarding specific policies and the process for reporting or appealing violations can be found in our Help Center (https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/twitter-repor... and https://help.twitter.com/en/managing-your-account/suspended-...).

So the ToS refers to the policies in question. The list of things is only "for example," with more in the specific policies you agree to.

Let’s see!

The Terms of Service:

https://twitter.com/content/twitter-com/legal/en/tos

states “You may use the Services only in compliance with these Terms and all applicable laws, rules and regulations”, and links to the Twitter Rules and Policies:

https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies

Following the link to the “Hateful Conduct Policy”:

https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/hateful-condu...

Which states:

> We prohibit targeting others with repeated slurs, tropes or other content that intends to dehumanize, degrade or reinforce negative or harmful stereotypes about a protected category. This includes targeted misgendering or deadnaming of transgender individuals.

In the Wayback machine, it looks like that direct language was added in an update between October 19 and October 28 of 2018, about four years ago:

https://web.archive.org/web/20181028023901/https://help.twit...

The older version had this, which reasonably encompasses that behavior, though doesn’t name it specifically:

> repeated and/or or non-consensual slurs, epithets, racist and sexist tropes, or other content that degrades someone.

Thank you, I'm surprised it's explicitly called out but not too surprised.

That said, I have trouble believing that "why would you agree to a ToS that you don't actually intend to ascribe to 100% of the time" is a question that requires serious consideration.

The key part is how you react when the ToS gets enforced. Like I said, if your account gets suspended and the specific violation is brought to your attention, then either delete the offending tweet or revoke your agreement.

Or just delete and post it again later and hope for a different outcome.