Seth MacFarlane: ‘A National No Twitter Day Would Be Healthy’

BEVERLY HILLS, CA - AUGUST 08: Creator/Writer/EP/Actor Seth MacFarlane of 'The Orvill
Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images
Hannah Knudsen

Actor and creator of Family Guy Seth MacFarlane floated a “National No Twitter Day” Tuesday evening, which could very well signal the growing concerns of the social justice charade embraced by Silicon Valley.

On Tuesday, MacFarlane recommended his 14.3 million Twitter followers to scroll through their old tweets in order to learn from them, noting that “almost none of them age well.”

“I recommend occasionally scrolling through your old tweets,” he said Tuesday. “It’s educational. Almost none of them age well. For any of us. It’ll make you cringe. A National No Twitter Day would be healthy.”

MacFarlane’s suggestion comes at a time of mounting concerns over the policing of speech by Silicon Valley. A number of high-profile celebrities have had to apologize for old tweets in recent months.

Comedian Kevin Hart stepped down from hosting the Oscars after activists complained about “homophobic” tweets and jokes he made from 2009 to 2011.

He apologized but ultimately did not host the Oscars.

“I really had to dive into the whole thing, even the tweets,” Hart said at the time. “These weren’t words that I said to gay individuals. I didn’t say these words to people, at the time, this was our dumb asses on Twitter going back and forth with each other. We thought it was okay to talk like that, because that’s how we talked to one another. In that, you go, f*ck! This is wrong now.”

“Now we’re in a space where I’m around people of the LGBTQ community, and I’m now aware of how these words make them feel, and why they say, ‘That shit hurt because of what I’ve been through,’” he added.

Similarly, Hollywood writer-director James Gunn went through the wringer after a series of old tweets surfaced, featuring jokes about child rape, AIDS, the Holocaust, and Mexicans.

“The offensive attitudes and statements discovered on James’ Twitter feed are indefensible and inconsistent with our studio’s values, and we have severed our business relationship with him,” Walt Disney Studios Alan Horn said at the time.

Walt Disney Studios initially fired Gunn but reinstated him after Guardians of the Galaxy cast members continued to stand by him and threatened to back out of Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 3.

Additionally, Heisman Trophy winner Kyler Murray found himself at the center of controversy over tweets he posted when he was 14 and 15 years old, in which he used the word “queer” as an insult. He ultimately deleted the tweets and apologized.

“I apologize for the tweets that have come to light tonight from when I was 14 and 15,” he tweeted in December. “I used a poor choice of word that doesn’t reflect who I am or what I believe. I did not intend to single out any individual or group.”

COMMENTS

Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.