VICE Admits: Twitter Is Shadowbanning Conservatives, Mainstream Republicans
25 Jul 2018

A new report from left-leaning VICE News revealed that Twitter is hiding the accounts of certain high-profile conservatives from users — which Breitbart News has been covering for years.

A new report published on Wednesday by VICE News details the ongoing censorship of conservatives on social media. This time, the offender is Twitter. Through an objective analysis, VICE News reporter Alex Thompson concluded that Twitter is hiding the accounts of certain high-profile conservatives from its user through a process referred to as “shadowbanning.”

The Republican Party chair Ronna McDaniel, several conservative Republican congressmen, and Donald Trump Jr.’s spokesman no longer appear in the auto-populated drop-down search box on Twitter, VICE News has learned. It’s a shift that diminishes their reach on the platform — and it’s the same one being deployed against prominent racists to limit their visibility. The profiles continue to appear when conducting a full search, but not in the more convenient and visible drop-down bar. (The accounts appear to also populate if you already follow the person.)

Breitbart Tech’s Allum Bokhari reported on this latest form of Twitter shadowbanning Monday.

Some initially speculated that concerns about conservative account “shadow-banning” on Twitter were nothing more than a conspiracy. However, the report also concluded that high-profile liberals aren’t facing the same account restrictions.

Democrats are not being “shadow banned” in the same way, according to a VICE News review. McDaniel’s counterpart, Democratic Party chair Tom Perez, and liberal members of Congress — including Reps. Maxine Waters, Joe Kennedy III, Keith Ellison, and Mark Pocan — all continue to appear in drop-down search results. Not a single member of the 78-person Progressive Caucus faces the same situation in Twitter’s search.

The new report has turned some heads amongst journalists. Jonathan Swan of Axios wrote that he formerly thought that those accusing Twitter of “shadow-banning” were conspiracy theorists.

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https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2018/07/2...mpaign=20180725


Caught with their hand in the cookie jar:

Twitter Denies Shadowbanning, Says Suppression of Rep. Matt Gaetz Is an ‘Error’
25 Jul 2018

Twitter has denied shadowbanning, saying that the apparent suppression of autocomplete search suggestions for Republican congressman Matt Gaetz is an “error.”

A Twitter spokeswoman denied shadowbanning exists, and told Breitbart News that the issue with Matt Gaetz’s search results is being fixed:

Zitat

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As we have said before, we do not shadowban. We are aware that some accounts are not automatically populating in our search box, and [are] shipping a change to address this. The profiles, Tweets and discussions about these accounts do appear when you search for them.

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Covert (and overt) censorship of conservatives and right-wingers has been a reality on Twitter for some time. In January, Twitter employees were caught on camera discussing “shadowbanning” some conservative accounts, and classifying others as “bots” if they made too many tweets about “God, guns, and America.” More recently, it was discovered that a number of conservative accounts have been made difficult to find in search results, while left-wing accounts have not. This followed an announcement by Twitter that it would artificially “downrank” content that “distort and detract from the public conversation.”

More recently, Twitter’s famously woke CEO Jack Dorsey has said he wants artificial intelligence to determine “credible voices” on the platform. By taking an editorial approach to content, picking and choosing what content is promoted and what is downranked, Twitter risks alleations that it has become a publisher rather than a neutral platform, which would make it legally liable for the content posted by its users.

https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2018/07/2...mpaign=20180725