So, as you probably already know, Elon Musk paid $44 billion to buy Twitter. He is currently having a fire sale, and everything has to go.
The “Twitter Files,” internal documents released by Musk and examined by the journalists, have been published by various media outlets over the past two weeks. These documents provide insight into how the social media network handled censorship and moderation.
A document leak on Thursday by former New York Times reporter Bari Weiss that confirmed that, yes, Virginia, there was shadow banning and that it was being used against conservative personalities is noteworthy, at least in the eyes of Dorsey’s attorneys.
“Shadow banning” is a technique used in online moderation that involves restricting a user’s content from being visible to others — either completely or partially — without notifying or alerting the person. Twitter swore that it wasn’t happening, especially not to conservative individuals, and the mainstream media was more than willing to believe them.
Then came Weiss’ revelations, which shot that all to heck.
4. Or consider the popular right-wing talk show host, Dan Bongino (@dbongino), who at one point was slapped with a “Search Blacklist.” pic.twitter.com/AdOK8xLu9v
— Bari Weiss (@bariweiss) December 9, 2022
Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, an opponent of the COVID lockdown, Dan Bongino, a conservative radio personality, and Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA, were among those who received shadow bans in one way or another.
Here’s where the issue arises: In testimony before Congress four years ago, Jack Dorsey stated that there was no excessive shadow banning of conservative personalities.
Rep. Greg Walden, an Oregon Republican who is now the chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, stated in his opening remarks at the hearing in September 2018 that “in July, it was reported that some politically prominent users were no longer appearing as auto-populated options in certain search results.”
“This led to concerns that the service might be, quote, unquote, ‘shadow banning’ some users in an attempt to limit their visibility on the site,” Walden said.
“Now, this was hardly the first instance of a social media service taking actions which appeared to minimize or de-emphasize certain viewpoints, and in the most recent case, Twitter has stated that the actions were not intentional but, rather, the result of algorithms designed to maintain a more civil tone on the site.”
Later in the hearing, Democrat Rep. Mike Doyle of Pennsylvania gave Dorsey a chance to set the record straight.
“I think it’s important for people to understand — you know, the premise of this whole hearing and the reason that Twitter somehow, with all the other social media platforms out there, got the singular honor to sit in front of this committee is because there is some implication that your site is trying to censor conservative voices on your platform,” an exasperated Doyle said, not without a hint of sarcasm.
“Now, when you tried to explain the shadow banning — as I understand it — you had a system where if people who were following people had some behaviors, that was the trigger that allowed — that caused you to do the shadow banning,” he continued.
“So you were really like an equal opportunity shadow banner, right? You didn’t just shadow ban four conservative Republicans. You shadow banned 600,000 people across your entire platform, across the globe who had people following them that had certain behaviors that caused you to downgrade them coming up. Is that correct?”
“Correct,” Dorsey responded.
“So this was never targeted at conservative Republicans. This was targeted to a group of 600,000 people because of the people who followed them, and then you determined that wasn’t fair, and you corrected that practice,” Doyle said. “Is that correct?”
“Correct,” Dorsey responded, again.
“So just for the record, since you have been singled out as a social media platform before this committee, Twitter undertook no behavior to selectively censor conservative Republicans or conservative voices on your platform,” Doyle said. “Is that correct?
Again: “Correct.”
“Good. So let the record reflect that because that’s the whole reason supposedly we’re here because House Leader Kevin McCarthy wrote our chairman a letter and said, ‘Hey, this is going on and we think your committee should investigate it,’ and it’s a load of crap,” Doyle said.
A “lot of trash” conspiracy theory now takes little over four years to become widely believed, which is one area in which the Democrats have become more effective—possibly the only one.
Of course, this wouldn’t be possible without Musk’s acquisition of Twitter, which served as a deus ex machina by shedding light on the inner workings of shadow banning and how it was being used in line with the company’s left-wing values.
Take, for instance, how the account Libs of TikTok has been treated by Twitter censors:
17. The account—which Chaya Raichik began in November 2020 and now boasts over 1.4 million followers—was subjected to six suspensions in 2022 alone, Raichik says. Each time, Raichik was blocked from posting for as long as a week.
— Bari Weiss (@bariweiss) December 9, 2022
19. But in an internal SIP-PES memo from October 2022, after her seventh suspension, the committee acknowledged that “LTT has not directly engaged in behavior violative of the Hateful Conduct policy." See here: pic.twitter.com/d9FGhrnQFE
— Bari Weiss (@bariweiss) December 9, 2022
Then, compare it to tweets that doxed the woman behind the Libs of TikTok account:
22. When Raichik told Twitter that her address had been disseminated she says Twitter Support responded with this message: "We reviewed the reported content, and didn't find it to be in violation of the Twitter rules." No action was taken. The doxxing tweet is still up. pic.twitter.com/tUeaBP1bS4
— Bari Weiss (@bariweiss) December 9, 2022
The question is, how much did @jack know about who was getting shadow-banned, and when did he know it?
We were right again.
