The Penthouse strip club in Vancouver, Canada, was banned from the Elon Musk-owned social media platform formerly known as Twitter after a photo of its latest marquee went viral
The strip club landed in hot water after its cheeky swipe at Donald Trump(Image: Anadolu via Getty Images)
A strip club has been suspended from X for “hate speech” after taking a cheeky swipe at Donald Trump.
The Elon Musk owned social media platform, formerly known as Twitter, took drastic measures on Vancouver’s Penthouse strip club, after a photo of the club’s latest marquee went viral. Its signage read, “Forever neighbours, never neighbors” in a reference to the US president-elect’s recent trolling of Canada by calling it America’s 51st state. And to hit the political satire home it used the juxtaposition of the Canadian spelling of “neighbour” against the US’s “neighbor”.
Both Trump and Musk have recently been stoking up rhetoric of colonising various countries, including making Greenland “great again” and liberating the UK from its “tyrannical government”.
The signage that went viral(Image: ctv news)
But it seems the club’s brazen reluctance at being deigned a part of America was a little too much for some to take.
Within a day of the pic hitting X, The Penthouse had its account shut down on the platform, claiming “it violates the X Hateful Profile Policy”.
Penthouse social media manager Benjamin Jackson told CBC News: “When I first saw the words ‘hate speech’ my heart dropped.
“Still right now, I find myself a little speechless because it’s shocking, just obviously knowing that it’s clearly not hate speech.”
Jackson still isn’t certain how the sign came to be deemed hateful. “I think it’s probably flagged by somebody that is more of a Trump or Elon Musk supporter, and … if it gets enough complaints, by default it will get taken down,” he said.
Jackson believes the post was probably flagged by
a Trump or Musk supporter(Image: AP)READ MORE: Sick ‘Eunuch Maker’ who offered desperate men £25k to lop off their genitals with knives
The Penthouse marquee has built a reputation for its current affairs locally, but now is growing an international audience.
Penthouse owner Danny Filippone, whose family has owned the club since the 1930s, told CBC that the contentious marquee has see the phone ringing “every five minutes”.
He said whether it’s media, friends, customers or strangers, the general consensus is: “This is crazy, what’s going on?”
Jackson, who does double duty as a bartender, said there has been an upside to the X controversy, and that is that it has been good for business.
He said that while some people were full of empathy, saying it was too bad that the account was taken down from X, he believes it was the best thing that could have happened.
“I think [the marquee] would have had the recognition in the city,” he said. “But the fact is now… it’s a bigger story. And to me, I’m all for it. They can keep the account at this point.”