{"id":1469757,"date":"2022-05-10T08:15:18","date_gmt":"2022-05-10T12:15:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1469757"},"modified":"2022-05-10T08:15:25","modified_gmt":"2022-05-10T12:15:25","slug":"even-as-the-elon-musk-sale-closes-twitter-is-still-ramping-up-efforts-to-suppress-content","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/even-as-the-elon-musk-sale-closes-twitter-is-still-ramping-up-efforts-to-suppress-content\/","title":{"rendered":"Even As The Elon Musk Sale Closes, Twitter Is Still Ramping Up Efforts To Suppress Content"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">32<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Feven-as-the-elon-musk-sale-closes-twitter-is-still-ramping-up-efforts-to-suppress-content%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1469757&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>While the deal is not yet final, Elon Musk is buying Twitter and he\u2019s promising to make changes to the platform, most notably by lessening the censorship that goes on behind the scenes.<\/p>\n<p>While those of us who doomscroll the hellscape that is the bird app have seen some signs of life in response to Musk\u2019s pledge \u2014 long-banned accounts being reinstated, dormant users returning, people on the right finally getting their blue checks \u2014 it increasingly seems like those still in charge want to leave as much of a mess for the next owner to clean up as possible.<\/p>\n<p>An example of such began showing itself last week when podcaster Eliza Bleu sent her first op-ed to a friend and asked her to share it. When the friend opened the message, she was greeted with a <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/JohnnaCrider1\/status\/1521551561121583107\">warning stating<\/a> \u201cMessage hidden due to suspicious content.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>So much for <a href=\"https:\/\/investor.twitterinc.com\/contact\/faq\/default.aspx#:~:text=The%20mission%20we%20serve%20as,a%20free%20and%20global%20conversation.\">being a place<\/a> \u201cto give everyone the power to create and share ideas and information instantly without barriers. Our business and revenue will always follow that mission in ways that improve \u2013 and do not detract from \u2013 a free and global conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Bleu\u2019s inaugural op-ed was about Twitter, but that doesn\u2019t seem to be what triggered the algorithm, or person masquerading as an algorithm, as the article was more specifically about how Musk\u2019s changes could help lessen child predators\u2019 ability to use the app to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theblaze.com\/op-ed\/elon-musk-twitter-child-sexual-abuse#toggle-gdpr\">share media showing sexual abuse<\/a>. It was not a broadside against Twitter\u2019s current modus operandi. It was not a call for digital anarchy. It wasn\u2019t even that pro-Musk. Nonetheless, whatever algorithmic changes that have been rolled out in recent days caught her message.<\/p>\n<p>And she\u2019s not alone. This also happened to me when I attempted to share a link to an article I wrote in 2014 about <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2014\/09\/18\/surprised-by-joy-how-weed-and-an-ultrasound-taught-me-to-love-life\/\">becoming pro-life<\/a>. Granted, I was knowingly engaging in thoughtcrime given the leak of Justice Alito\u2019s draft opinion in <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2022\/05\/03\/before-finally-overturning-roe-supreme-court-must-block-yet-another-insurrection-attempt\/\"><em>Dobbs v. Jackson<\/em><\/a>, and Twitter would love nothing more than to silence opposition and cow any wavering justices into <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2022\/05\/03\/the-only-reason-to-leak-that-scotus-opinion-is-to-bully-justices-into-submission\/\">submission<\/a>. Regardless, this is what my friends saw:<\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full is-resized\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/Crom.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-272207\" width=\"-193\" height=\"-48\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/Crom.png 974w, https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/Crom-300x75.png 300w, https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/Crom-768x192.png 768w\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p>While my friends, as well as Bleu\u2019s, were able to view the message, this development is reminiscent of Twitter\u2019s reaction to The New York Post\u2019s reporting on Hunter Biden\u2019s laptop. At the time, users could not only not tweet a link to the piece, they couldn\u2019t even direct message it, content warning or otherwise. Jack Dorsey may have called that decision <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2021\/03\/25\/dorsey-says-blocking-posts-hunter-biden-story-was-total-mistake\/\">a mistake<\/a>, but some of the coders behind the scenes evidently do not share that opinion, even today.<\/p>\n<p>When announcing his acquisition of the company, Musk wrote, \u201cFree speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated.\u201d Today, with these subtle changes, Twitter is now still trying to not only limit debate but prevent friends from sharing their work with one another.<\/p>\n<p>Look, we\u2019re all free not to use Twitter. Honestly, the world would be a better place if none of us did, but Musk\u2019s observation that it\u2019s become the digital town square is accurate. And while physical town squares also feature content moderation in the form of various local laws, there\u2019s no way to totally silence us as Twitter does. If one were to go old school and write a message on a piece of posterboard with a Sharpie, it would take some time for the police to remove us from our chosen corner of the square, assuming we\u2019d actually broken a law.<\/p>\n<p>When it comes to social media, there are no such laws, or even norms, which are supposedly all the rage these days. Instead, it\u2019s totally dependent on the whims of the Wizards of Oz, pulling strings behind the curtain. And Twitter\u2019s wizards are obviously pulling as many strings as possible ahead of the sale, hoping to create a Byzantine mess so large that it\u2019s impossible to clean up. Elon, though, can fix it.<\/p>\n<p>If he were feeling truly philanthropic, he\u2019d immediately delete Twitter in its entirety upon completion of the sale. That\u2019s unlikely to happen given that his goal is to not only free up the platform, but also make it profitable. Musk may be after more conversation, and he\u2019s obviously not trying to destroy it. <\/p>\n<p>But since the rot is still deep within the company, seeking to control which conversations get to happen even now, Musk must channel one such banned user, roll in on day one, and tell a whole lot of employees, \u201cYou\u2019re fired.\u201d If he truly wants a digital town square, it\u2019s the only way to remove the chains that a bunch of lefty nerds are trying to keep us in.<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\" \/>\n<div class=\"article-author-description fst-italic\">\n  Richard Cromwell is a writer and senior contributor at The Federalist. He lives in Northwest Arkansas with his wife, three daughters, and two crazy dogs. Co-host of the podcast <a href=\"https:\/\/coffeeandcochon.com\/%E2%80%9C\">Coffee &#038; Cochon<\/a>, you can find him on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/jrichardcromwell%E2%80%9C\">Facebook<\/a><br \/>\nand <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/rcromwell4\">Twitter<\/a>, though you should probably avoid using social media.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>While the deal is not yet final, Elon Musk is buying Twitter and he\u2019s promising to make changes to the platform, most notably by lessening the censorship that goes on<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":701,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1469757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1469757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/701"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1469757"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1469757\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1469757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1469757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1469757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}