Twitter's shadow ban is real, Elon Musk exposes corporate liberal bias
The 'Twitter Files' show powerful censorship of conservatives
I’ve been frustrated for years by being shadow banned on Twitter. I notice it when there is a big drop off in retweets and comments or a significant decrease in followers after I write about certain topics the left hates (guns, ivermectin, Donald Trump.)
Now Twitter’s new owner Elon Musk has revealed that silencing conservatives was an active part of the corporate plan. Toldayso.
I see shadows
Shadow ban means a platform’s algorithm forces lesser engagement with an account. I repeatedly spoke out about my perception of this censorship. I wrote in 2019:
In 2020:
May 2022:
Call us crazy
Over the years of tweeting about the shadow ban, people responded that I was paranoid or just didn’t have an active following. Some just mocked me. Look at the responses to this tweet last April:
One response to me:
Ashley Brook, who is supposedly an impartial news anchor at local TV affiliate CBS-19 News in Charlottesville, VA, tweeted in reply:
Now seven months later, Brooks should be embarrassed to learn that shadow banning is both real and an effective method by Twitter to silence free speech.
Musk’s revelations
We now know this because Musk released a second round of “Twitter Files”, which give evidence of shadow banning by the company. At the same time, Musk offered a fix. He said the company will release software that will enable accounts to know if they are being shadow banned, why and a way to appeal.
The blacklist
Substack writer
did a long thread on Thursday night about how Twitter deliberately and systematically decreased the public’s ability to get information from conservative accounts. You can read her thread unrolled here.Weiss, who used to report for The New York Times, called the thread “Twitter’s secret blacklist.” She showed screenshots of accounts that were prevented from getting on the trending topics list, being found in searches or amplified solely because liberal Twitter executives hate the right. Here are two examples:
Dan Bongino, the super popular conservative commentator, was blocked from showing up in searches on Twitter:
@Jack approved
Weiss also reported that Twitter’s former CEO Jack Dorsey approved the system in the interest of “civic integrity.”
Dorsey had testified before Congress (UNDER OATH!) that Twitter does not shadow ban. See this video:
Well, Dorsey lied and so did the company’s top lawyer, Vijaya Gadde, who declared in this 2018 post:
we certainly don’t shadow ban based on political viewpoints or ideology.
Dorsey’s lie is bold because two days earlier, he appealed to Musk to release all the internal files to “build trust”:
Free the Twitter files
I have no idea why Dorsey would want to be known as part of the liberal censorship operation at Twitter, but I agree with him on this point of disclosure.
Like I wrote about the first Twitter Files release about Hunter Biden’s laptop from another Substack writer,
, I appreciate that independent journalists are getting access to these internal corporate documents before major media outlets.However, I think Musk would better build public trust if he dumped the files online and let the public read them firsthand. It also would allow other reporters like me to write about them without explaining that the information is being filtered.
Out of the shadows
Anyway, back to the truth on shadow banning. The reason this is such a big deal (though you won’t read about it in most mainstream publications) is that conservative outlet and their reach are tiny compared to liberal ones.
The only way conservative news and analysis can reach an audience even partly the size of the mainstream one is by using social media to amplify the reporting.
Thus, Twitter’s years of keeping our content hidden from users led to a less informed, more liberal public. It is an astounding effort to limit free speech to help one political party. I’m glad to see there are a few rays of sun shining through in Silicon Valley.
The rumor on @jack was that he lived kind of a”hippie” life -like Steve martin in BAby Daddy - and only appeared to repeat platitudes. The real power was Vijay and Yoel, and later Parag - they ran an ad-hoc block and tackle with their friends from the deep state. Very sad and really sad to read that no one seemed to even consider that acting at the direction of the government had serious 1st amendment implications. I do have some respect for Ro Khana, though - he’s the only D that had some sense. No R even tried, but I’msure they thought it was useless.
As to the hearing procedure, you could have true oversight and less sound bite-isms. Would t it be nice to have a hearing where they said “director Wray, how many fbi agents were undercover on J6?” Or “scy mayorkas, how many people are illegally crossing the border in the last month?” And getting an actual answer and not “I don’t have that information here, Senator, but I can assure you that the border is secure”.
*Toldyaso