Now, those with media platforms were no longer able to publish misinformation with impunity: they could be challenged and publicly held to account. Some of the British commentariat adapted to this new accountability more easily than others: for most of us under the age of 35 working in the media, it is all we have ever known. Others, though, responded with hostility to such public challenges: trans people active on social media platforms were condemned as angry activists, as a mob that were trying to silence debate, or simply, as The Times had it, as ‘bullies’.
