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Editor’s note: Here at The Daily, we encourage our readers to submit guest editorials and letters to be featured in our Opinion section. We welcome all voices to contribute positively to campus conversations. Our submission guidelines can be found here.
I am a staunch advocate of progressive policies and have made my voice heard online; however, on Elon Musk’s X (formerly known as Twitter), such efforts nearly destroyed my life. I’ve been a user of X since 2009.
It used to be the go-to platform for breaking news, pop culture updates, and healthy debate. However, since Elon Musk acquired the social media platform in 2022, the platform has become a sanctuary for those wishing to spew hate with impunity.
I became the target of so-called “alpha males” in January 2023 after I engaged in a debate with a National Rifle Association (NRA) fanatic known for his harassment of witnesses of mass shootings.
These “alpha men” hold racist and misogynistic views and often dox individuals they do not agree with. After the NRA fanatic posted an image of my X bio, which states that I am progressive and support Black Lives Matter and the LGBTQ+ community, the entire “alpha male” community made me their target. A particular user from Florida immediately tweeted his disgust with me, posting pictures of my LinkedIn account.
His tweet directly mentioned UW, as well as the president of UW. He intensified his attacks over months, spamming the UW and various UW-related handles, including my own department with disparaging tweets. He called me “mentally unstable” and “dangerous to students.”
He even visited my external social media accounts, such as Facebook and LinkedIn, and used and distributed my pictures without my consent. His attacks continue to this day. I have lost count of how many times he has baselessly called me a “groomer” (a slur that he throws at anyone who supports the LGBTQ+ community) and other names, including “Iranian terrorist.”
At the same time, other “alpha males” made numerous attempts to harass and silence me, including contacting UW with baseless claims against me. They went as far as contacting ICE to request my deportation. The “alpha males” created fake profiles of me, they took my photos without my consent and Photoshopped me over hateful images, and they demanded that I be fired and deported.
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I naively thought X might take some action to stop these hateful posts that, on their face, constituted violations of X’s policies prohibiting the use of slurs and tropes to reinforce negative stereotypes against protected classes. Yet each time I flagged a post, X almost always left the post in place, including posts where they called me various dirty slurs.
Despite these continued attacks, I stayed on X. I remained steadfast in my goal of taking a stand for my beliefs and continued to implore X to remove the harmful content. X did nothing in response.
It was not until these “alpha males” came for my family that I had to take a pause from X. They found photos of my nephew who has Down syndrome and made him their new target. His complete dehumanization became their pastime.
They copied pictures from my social media accounts of him and reposted them dozens of times, called him offensive, ableist words, mocking his condition, and Photoshopping hate symbols (e.g. the Confederate flag) onto his pictures. I flagged these posts with X as well, hoping that this time X would act, but they again did nothing. Worried for my family’s safety, I temporarily stopped tweeting.
The ongoing harassment toward my disabled nephew and elderly mother compelled me to file a law enforcement report, inform UW SafeCampus, contact Student Legal Services, and stop speaking on X. I have been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of my experiences on X. However, even when I stopped using X, the “alpha males” continued to attack me online.
Ultimately, I’ve decided to use the platform to retweet posts I believe in. It is important to me to keep my account @el_raul active to memorialize what can happen when hate speech rhetoric is allowed to flourish. That account remains a testimony to who I am, what I believe in, and what I have been through. I remain staunch in my beliefs and ideals; however, I’ve learned X is no longer a place for free speech. Voicing my opinions on X nearly destroyed me.
Here’s my advice for you: make changes in the real world. As university students and educators, we can.
Khosro Raúl Soleimani
Ph.D. in Hispanic literature, June 2026.