A Democratic candidate for Pittsburgh city controller said she moved a recent campaign event to a private location after being harassed following a post by a controversial, right-wing Twitter account.

In response, Rachael Heisler is criticizing Twitter CEO Elon Musk and questioning why a new safety policy on the social media platform was not applied to her incident or the account that riled up controversy over her event.

Heisler scheduled a campaign event for last Sunday called “Donuts and Drag” at Oliver’s Donuts in Pittsburgh’s Lawrenceville. The morning event was advertised as a fundraiser and would feature local drag queen Chi Chi de Vivre performing what Heisler described as family-friendly holiday tunes for guests.

The Twitter account Libs of TikTok posted about the event in advance and highlighted the words “family-friendly” to the account’s 1.7 million followers. Libs of TikTok has generated controversy for its anti-LGBTQ posts.

In September, children’s hospitals in Boston and Washington that provide care to transgender youth blamed Libs of TikTok for inciting harassment against the hospitals, including an anonymous bomb threat.

After Libs of TikTok tweeted about Heisler’s drag campaign event, her campaign reviewed hundreds of replies to the tweet, many of which compared the drag event to pedophilia. The Heisler campaign said Oliver’s Donuts also was targeted with harassment and negative online reviews after the tweet.

The Heisler campaign changed the location of its event and then reviewed the RSVP list before sending out location information to guests. The event occurred Sunday at an undisclosed location with private security on hand.

Heisler, who is now Pittsburgh’s deputy controller, criticized the Libs of TikTok for encouraging harassment against her campaign and Oliver’s Donuts. She called the account “viciously transphobic and homophobic.”

When reached, the Libs of TikTok account said “drag is inappropriate for kids and I won’t ever stop calling it out.”

Heisler, of the North Side, questioned why Twitter took no action against Libs of TikTok for generating harassment and sharing the private addresses and information of her event.

Last week, Twitter updated its policies and banned the sharing of “live location information,” also known as doxxing. This new policy came shortly after Twitter suspended several accounts, including ones for journalists and an account that uses publicly available information to say where Musk’s private jet is flying.

On Dec. 15, Musk tweeted that “criticizing me all day long is totally fine, but doxxing my real-time location and endangering my family is not.”

Heisler said Musk is setting a “double standard” for suspending some accounts that have been criticizing Musk, while not taking action against other accounts that are doxxing others.

“I’m thankful I had the resources and time to navigate this, but the situation is really untenable. Twitter has chosen to no longer protect anyone who is out of alignment with Musk’s personal ideology,” Heisler said.

Before the midterm elections, Musk encouraged “independent-minded voters” to vote for Republicans.

“It’s ironic Musk is taking steps to protect himself but is uninterested in providing similar help to vulnerable users,” Heisler added.

Twitter did not respond to a request for comment for this story.

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