Jeremy Clarkson blames Twitter for the backlash over his column about transgender people

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Jeremy Clarkson

REUTERS/Peter Nicholls

Television presenter Jeremy Clarkson is mobbed by journalists as he leaves an address in London, March 11, 2015.

Jeremy Clarkson has blamed Twitter for the backlash over his column in The Sunday Times that appeared to deride transgender people.

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In a new column for The Times, Clarkson claims that The Daily Mirror, which was the first to notice his comments (and appears to have now heavily updated its article), left out his final two paragraphs, which argue that anyone can identify as whoever they want.

"I started to imagine what life might be like for the poor soul [who was transgender]," Clarkson concluded. "[A]ll they seem to want to make their life better is a third gender option box on official documents." These comments were left out of the original report from The Mirror.

The article - which is behind a paywall - was then picked up by Twitter and passed around, according to Clarkson, with people misreading his comments and calling for him to be fired.

"As is the way with modern media, the story spread rapidly, until by lunchtime Twitter had accepted it as fact and then carpet-bombed my phone with abuse," he wrote.

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Clarkson goes on to reference Justine Sacco, who made a tweet about not getting AIDs because she was white and was then fired after Twitter picked it up while she was on a 12-hour flight.

Jeremy Clarkson

REUTERS/Suzanne Plunkett

BBC automobile program "Top Gear" presenter Jeremy Clarkson speaks with a member of his crew while filming a segment outside 10 Downing Street in London November 29, 2011.

According to Clarkson, Twitter's "big problem" is that "it's being policed by the Stasi," the private security service that operated in East Germany during the Cold War.

News organisations then "run a story saying, 'Twitter has reacted with fury...', which then causes the whole site to become angrier still," he wrote.

Many people called for Clarkson's resignation from Amazon, where he is working on a new car show with Richard Hammond and James May, both of whom come from "Top Gear."

"Twitter's a good idea," Clarkson concludes. "But these days it sounds like a sixth-form common room after the headmaster has announced the guest speaker at tomorrow's assembly will be Katie Hopkins," a reference to the controversial British talking-head who said, in a column for The Sun, that she would "use gunships" to stop migrant boats.

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