Twitter has flagged an edited anime video shared by Arizona Republican Rep. Paul Gosar as hateful content. It depicted the representative as a character in the popular but controversial anime Attack on Titan attacking other characters in the anime edited to look like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.Attack on Titan is a popular anime and manga series about a group of vaguely germanic humans fighting to save themselves and their civilization from grotesque outsiders called Titans who have no urge other than to kill and eat humans. Although there’s some debate about how much the series subverts these themes, the show has attracted a portion of right wing fans who enjoy the more conservative aspects of the story. Yesterday, Gosar posted an edited version of the show’s first opening theme. It was edited to depict himself as main character Eren Jaeger and to depict the inhuman Titans as the liberal politicians he works with, like Ocasio-Cortez and President Joe Biden. The video goes on to show Gosar killing both Ocasio-Cortez and Biden. The Associated Press reported about the Tweet Monday, and Twitter has since flagged the video as “hateful content.”
Prior to the tweet being flagged as hateful content, Ocasio-Cortez tweeted about the video, condemning both Gosar and the Republican Party for tolerating this behavior.“A creepy member I work with who fundraises for Neo-Nazi groups shared a fantasy video of him killing me,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote. “Fun Monday!”