07/26/2018 / By Ethan Huff
We now have proof that meddling is a factor in American elections – but not by Russia, and not in favor of Donald Trump. New reports reveal that the social media platform Twitter is actually hiding the accounts of certain high-profile conservative users in order to silence their voices from reaching potential voters during this critical mid-term election year.
VICE reporter Alex Thompson recently published an eye-opening story about how Twitter has been “shadow” banning prominent Republicans from showing up in search results, severely limiting their online reach.
Republican Party chair Ronna McDaniel, several conservative Republican congressmen, and even Donald Trump Jr. were all removed from Twitter’s auto-populated drop-down search box, VICE was the first to report. And apparently this is the same mode of censorship being applied to what Thompson describes as “prominent racists,” limiting their ability to reach other Twitter users.
On the flip side, not a single Democrat, including loud-mouthed, low-IQ career politician Maxine Waters, is having his or her Twitter account shadow-banned. All of them, as well as all 78 members of the Progressive Caucus, continue to show up in Twitter’s drop-down search results, revealing that the social media platform is actively targeting conservatives and Republicans.
“The notion that social media companies would suppress certain political points of view should concern every American,” stated McDaniel to VICE. “Twitter owes the public answers to what’s really going on.”
Twitter apparently considers all Republicans and conservatives who speak out to be internet “trolls” worthy of silencing
When presented with screenshots of the issue, a Twitter spokesperson responded to VICEthat it was “aware” of some accounts “not automatically populating in our search box,” adding that the company is “shipping a change to address this.” But the spokesperson could not explain why only conservatives were having their accounts censored.
“I’d emphasize that our technology is based on account *behavior* not the content of Tweets,” the spokesperson explained.
This same spokesperson followed this up by directing VICE to a May 15 blog post in which Twitter released new guidelines on how it was planning to combat “troll-like behaviors.” The company says that the changes implemented then were designed to make people who “contribut[e] to the healthy conversation … more visible in conversations and search.”
In other words, Twitter apparently regards its conservative and Republican users as notcontributing to a healthy conversation, which is why they’re now having their accounts blocked from auto-populated search results.
Since publishing its original story on this, VICE has since stated that Twitter appears to have adjusted its platform “overnight,” adding that all of the aforementioned users who were being censored are now showing up as normal in the system.
“Some accounts weren’t being auto-suggested even when people were searching for their specific name,” tweeted Twitter co-founder Kayvon Beykpour just prior to the changes.
“Our usage of the behavior signals within search was causing this to happen & making search results seem inaccurate. We’re making a change today that will improve this.”
Also among those censored was Florida Republican Matt Gaetz, who stated that Twitter had “deliberately” targeted him and several other Congressmen, including Republican Representatives Devin Nunes, Mark Meadows, Jim Jordan, and John Ratcliffe.
Rep. Gates, as you may recall, recently had a spate with Twitter, which could explain why he had his account slated for silencing, which prompted him to tweet the following:
“Is it only a coincidence that these allegations would arise the week following my heated exchange with Twitter Executives before the Judiciary Committee??”
For more news on how liberals are playing dirty to keep conservative voices out of the mainstream, visit LiberalMob.com.
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