‘Uncle Tim’ trends on Twitter after Tim Scott’s Biden address rebuttal
Uncle Tim #UncleTim
A racist slur against Sen. Tim Scott was trending on Twitter late Wednesday and early Thursday after he gave the Republican response to President Biden’s address to Congress.
From about 11 p.m. through at least 12:45 a.m., one of the trending topics on the social-media behemoth was “Uncle Tim.”
The topic “Uncle Tim” was prominently displayed and suggested for users, despite Twitter’s oft-stated claims that it suppresses racist speech and does not let such topics trend.
Mr. Scott even said in his speech that “I get called Uncle Tom and the N-word by progressives … I know firsthand, our healing [from racism] is not finished.”
Conservative reactions ranged from apoplectic to world-weary resignation at a familiar double standard.
“Twitter is still going out of its way to make racist attacks against GOP Sen. Tim Scott go viral,” said Mollie Hemingway of the Federalist, calling Twitter’s behavior “disgusting.”
Added “AGHamilton29”: “If this trend was aimed at a Dem, every big media person would be blowing up Twitter for not doing something about it. Since it’s aimed at a Republican, it’s only people on the right highlighting it, those media ppl stay silent, & Twitter doesn’t feel like they need to react.”
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