President Donald Trump accused Twitter Thursday of "discriminatory and illegal practice," vowing in a tweet to "look into" the matter.
Twitter shares added roughly a percent to the stock's premarket losses immediately following the accusation.
Trump called out a practice commonly called "shadow banning" in which Twitter limits visibility in search results for particular accounts. Trump, following a Vice report about the practice, claimed the company is limiting the reach of "prominent Republicans."
The Vice story claims Republicans such as party chair Ronna McDaniel and Donald Trump Jr.'s spokesperson were among those being de-emphasized in search results.
A spokesperson for Twitter declined to comment on Trump's tweet but told CNBC: "As we have said before, we do not 'shadowban.' We are aware that some accounts are not automatically populating in our search box, and shipping a change to address this. The profiles, Tweets and discussions about these accounts do appear when you search for them. To be clear, our behavioral ranking doesn't make judgments based on political views or the substance of Tweets."
Twitter is a private company and can moderate its platform as it sees fit. Trump did not specify which law he believed Twitter was violating.
Twitter saw similar claims of conservative censorship in the fall, after suspending several alt-right accounts in an effort to reduce hate speech and threats of violence on the site. Republican lawmakers have also repeatedly accused Facebook of silencing conservative voices, holding several congressional hearings to address the matter in which representatives for Facebook, Twitter and YouTube denied any political bias.
"Our purpose is to serve the conversation, not to make value judgments on personal beliefs," Nick Pickles, Twitter's global lead for public policy strategy, told Congress last week.
Trump Slams Twitter's "Shadow-Banning" Of Prominent Republicans
Jack Dorsey may have pushed his apparent anti-conservative agenda just a little too far after evidence mounts - even among the liberal media - that Twitter has been 'shadow-banning' various 'right of socialist' members on the social media site ( by limiting the number of people who are able to view content from the affected users).
Following CEO Jack Dorsey's attempt to play down the actions, saying "It suffices to say we have a lot more work to do to earn people's trust on how we work."
We’ve heard questions from some of you relating to our work to drive healthy conversation on Twitter. People are asking us 1) about the breadth and precision of our work & 2) the impact of our work on the Search experience. We wanted to address these questions transparently here.
In May, we started using behavioral signals and machine learning to reduce people’s ability to detract from healthy public conversation on Twitter. This approach looks at account behavior & interactions with other accounts that violate our rules.
On 1) We’re always working to improve our behavior-based ranking models - their breadth and accuracy will improve over time. It’s important to note that these behavior signals are not binary, and they are one of many other signals that factor into ranking.
To be clear, our behavioral ranking doesn’t make judgements based on political views or the substance of tweets. We recently publicly testified to Congress on this topic https://judiciary.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Pickles-Testimony.pdf
On 2) Some accounts weren’t being auto-suggested even when people were searching for their specific name. 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.
We believe this work is really important to creating a healthier Twitter and we want to continue improving. Your feedback helps us do that so please keep it coming.
And after his son blasted Dorsey...
So now @twitter is censoring @GOPChairwoman?
Enough is enough with this crap. @Jack it’s time for you to #StopTheBias against conservatives and Trump supporters and fix this once and for all. news.vice.com/en_us/article/…
President Trump has decided to step into this debacle (presumably in an effort to avert Dorsey's attempt to 'meddle' in the midterms), warning that " We will look into this discriminatory and illegal practice at once! "
Trump's tweet comes after his 2020 campaign manager, Brad Parscale, along with Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, wrote a letter in May calling for the CEOs of Facebook and Twitter to address concerns over conservative censorship ahead of the 2020 election, as well as a call for transparency.
"We recognize that Facebook and Twitter operate in liberal corporate cultures," the letter reads. "However, rampant political bias is inappropriate for a widely used public forum."
Comments
A $200 billion fine is in order. (Do it EU style).
but seriously, I'm shocked they haven't banned him yet...really only a matter of him being too visible.
I think it's two things:
1.) MSM gets a ton of easy hot-takes, etc., which leads into
2.) Twitter is now, as of this year, making its first profit since going public (not a coincidence in my mind). He's making them money
Every fucking app gets funded. But there's nothing wrong with the markets.
What I find even more interesting, is that a friend's Twitter account was shadow-banned, for posting the latest news, indictments, and theories pertaining to the NXIVM sex trafficking case.
His theory (which imho, is very plausible) is that #NXIVM was just the tip of the iceberg.
Based on the evidence, money, and connections of some of the bigger players, his thoughts are that NXIVM was primarily an organization trafficking in women and kids, with everything else being "white noise". They had extensive ties to the Salinas de Gortari crime family (Carlos Salinas), which is known to be involved in drug running, among other things.
They also had deep ties to Vancouver, which is apparently where Hollyweirdoes go to enjoy sexual depravities they're afraid to enjoy in the US.
Here in the US, they donated to the HRC campaign, and some of the board members were CGI supporters. They were also active in Arkansas, when Bill #Clinton was governor (surprise, surprise), so the relationship is well-established.
Funny how the Clintons always seem to pop-up in connection to evil things.
At any rate, the fact that Twitter shadow banned my friend for shining a light on sex trafficking is interesting. Could it perhaps be because many well-known Leftist Commie Libtard politicians and Hollyweirdoes are involved in it as patrons of this evil industry?
If that were the case, it only points to the idea that the whole #QAnon #pedogate #pizzagate thing is absolutely true.
Edit to add this;
Interesting sidenote: When Keith Raniere (head of NXIVM) had his bail hearing, one of the people who showed-up in court that day (to assist in the release of Raniere) was Mark Sullivan. A known member of the "Arizona mob", Sullivan also has the distinction of being a former head of the US Secret Service:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_J._Sullivan
This is documented in the court transcripts from the hearing on 6/12/18. Raniere's lawyers were trying to get him released on house arrest, under armed guard (which Raniere would have paid for) using a company named TorchStone to provide the guard services. Mark Sullivan raised his hand & ID'd himself to the court as "assisting TorchStone".
The AZ mafia has extensive ties to Salinas in MX. Dennis Burke, also an AZM member, was the lawyer who resigned following Fast & Furious. My friend's right...this NXIVM thing is way bigger than we know.
*- REPOST-*
The big story behind the big story is Elite Pedo-gate!
Oddly some of Trumps harshest critics- have a strong proclivity to center jokes around pedophilia- WTF?
http://www.cc.com/video-clips/6gv3fq/the-sarah-silverman-program-creepy…
There is nothing worse in the world then f-ing up a kid's mind- and that's for the life of the child.
Michael Ian Black jokes that he doesn't care to watch iCarly- as there is no one he'd like to molest?? And he tells us that in comedy sometimes you blur the line?
Really- anyone here find it funny? Sick bastards. Weinstein was a throw away, as his charges were against adults, the pedo crap is the going to burn down Hollywood.
These people are sick- compared to treason- this is huge. And it's probably the reason for the treason. Uranium One- selling your soul for money in politics BFD?
There is as more evidence that Weiner's laptop had a sexual snuff film (featuring Hillary and Huma tag team) then there is proof of Russian collusion on Trump's part.
And who at the FBI took possession of the Weiner's laptop evidence from the NYCP?
Good guess- Peter ("Hillary cock suckr") Strozck!
36 hours later his wife gets promoted to an investigative position at the SEC? How f-ing convenient.
That thumbnail is not very fair. I think he is down to only 2 chins now, and in the thumbnail he clearly is depicted with 3.
Leave George alone- he has a structural issue "Burnette Chin".
The dude could rip a guitar though.
"Pizzagate" is a distraction, ginned up by the media, to take the spotlight off the very, very real fact of globalist pedophilia which reaches to the highest levels of power all over the world. Whether or not some sicko's pizza restaurant is involved in child trafficking is irrelevant, but was made the focal point of the entire subject, precisely to divert attention away from DC, Wall Street, the 'City of London,' Hollyweird, the Vatican, etc.
It's the same way #MeToo got stupidly blown out of proportion, with shrieking harpy women yowling from every rooftop, while Corey Feldman's revelations of widespread child rape (And Elijah Wood's confirmation of them) quickly disappeared from public view.
Have you heard the audio of John Podesta's horrific abuse of a screaming child? I'm pretty sure that's mild, compared to what the globalist filth regularly engage in.
"Pizzagate," indeed.
