{"id":1771047,"date":"2022-12-10T06:05:03","date_gmt":"2022-12-10T11:05:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1771047"},"modified":"2022-12-10T08:03:22","modified_gmt":"2022-12-10T13:03:22","slug":"all-the-times-twitters-execs-lied-to-our-faces-about-them-shadowbanning-conservatives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/all-the-times-twitters-execs-lied-to-our-faces-about-them-shadowbanning-conservatives\/","title":{"rendered":"All the Times Twitter&#8217;s Execs Lied to Our Faces About Them Shadowbanning Conservatives"},"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\">26<\/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%2Fall-the-times-twitters-execs-lied-to-our-faces-about-them-shadowbanning-conservatives%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=1771047&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--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/k-scaled.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" alt=\"image\"     style=\"display:none\"><\/div>\n<p>Remember all the times Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and top Twitter lawyer Vijaya Gadde assured us that Twitter neither shadowbans nor targets conservatives? Well, they lied.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In the second installment of Elon Musk\u2019s \u201cTwitter Files,\u201d independent journalist Bari Weiss\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/bariweiss\/status\/1601008766861815808?s=20&#038;t=b0Xoi7w7PW6hKysGnAoFvA\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">exposed<\/a>\u00a0how the Big Tech company was secretly \u201cblacklisting\u201d conservative tweets and users by keeping \u201cdisfavored\u201d tweets from trending and secretly hiding whole accounts or topics without users\u2019 knowledge.<\/p>\n<p>One Twitter team, the \u201cStrategic Response Team \u2013 Global Escalation Team\u201d (SRT-GET), was reportedly committed to censoring \u201cup to 200 \u2018cases\u2019\u201d per day. Victims included prominent conservatives Dan Bongino and Charlie Kirk, as well as Stanford University professor and co-author of the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/v2-9mdnszte.thefederalist.com\/2020\/10\/13\/the-great-barrington-declaration-is-a-spark-of-sanity-in-a-mad-world\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Great Barrington Declaration<\/a>\u00a0Dr. Jay Bhattacharya.<\/p>\n<p>Another secret censorship group, the \u201cSite Integrity Policy, Policy Escalation Support team\u201d (SIP-PES), was responsible for the most \u201cpolitically sensitive decisions.\u201d The group included Gadde, Dorsey, trust and safety head Yoel Roth, former CEO Parag Agrawal, and others, and it was personally responsible for suppressing the viral Libs of TikTok Twitter account, among other high-profile censorship calls.<\/p>\n<p>But remember when Twitter execs repeatedly insisted they didn\u2019t engage in shadowbanning?<\/p>\n<h2>\u2018We Do Not Shadow Ban\u2019<\/h2>\n<p>On July 25, 2018, Vice News\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/news.vice.com\/en_us\/article\/43paqq\/twitter-is-shadow-banning-prominent-republicans-like-the-rnc-chair-and-trump-jrs-spokesman\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">reported<\/a>\u00a0that several prominent Republican politicians, such as Mark Meadows, Jim Jordan, and Matt Gaetz, did not show up in a drop-down menu of automatically suggested searches, even when typing in the politicians\u2019 names.<\/p>\n<p>A day after the outcry over the apparent shadowbanning, Gadde and Twitter\u2019s product head Kayvon Beykpour attempted to couch concerns by co-authoring a blog post titled \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/blog.twitter.com\/official\/en_us\/topics\/company\/2018\/Setting-the-record-straight-on-shadow-banning.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Setting the record straight on shadow banning<\/a>.\u201d \u201cWe do not shadow ban,\u201d Gadde and Beykpour insisted. \u201cYou are always able to see the tweets from accounts you follow (although you may have to do more work to find them, like go directly to their profile). And we certainly don\u2019t shadow ban based on political viewpoints or ideology.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2>The Algorithm \u2018Doesn\u2019t Make Judgements Based on Political Views\u2019\u00a0<\/h2>\n<p>The day before publishing that blog post, Beykpour posted a Twitter thread blaming the discrimination against Republican members of Congress on the company\u2019s use of \u201cbehavioral signals and machine learning,\u201d which they were working to \u201cimprove.\u201d However, Beykpour <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/kayvz\/status\/1022149074051452931?s=20&#038;t=b0Xoi7w7PW6hKysGnAoFvA\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">assured<\/a> users that \u201cour behavioral ranking doesn\u2019t make judgments based on political views or the substance of tweets.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<h2>\u2018We Certainly Don\u2019t Shadow Ban Based on Political Viewpoints\u2019<\/h2>\n<p>Dorsey then\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/jack\/status\/1022662121379647488?s=20&#038;t=sCHhdXMYKS4-JqsD7MJ7yQ\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">shared<\/a>\u00a0Gadde and Beykpour\u2019s blog post, writing, \u201cWe don\u2019t shadow ban, and we certainly don\u2019t shadow ban based on political viewpoints.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe want a vibrant and healthy public conversation inclusive of all perspectives, and one that\u2019s immediately relevant and valuable,\u201d\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/jack\/status\/1022662126597419008?s=20&#038;t=b0Xoi7w7PW6hKysGnAoFvA\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">added<\/a>\u00a0Dorsey.<\/p>\n<h2>\u2018We Do Not Shadow Ban. Period\u2019<\/h2>\n<p>In August 2018, Dorsey phoned into Sean Hannity\u2019s radio show,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.hawley.senate.gov\/sen-hawley-formally-invites-facebook-and-twitter-testify-regarding-censorship-new-york-post\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">telling<\/a>\u00a0listeners, \u201cWe do not shadow ban according to political ideology or viewpoint or content. Period.\u201d Dorsey added that there is \u201ca lot of nuance to this\u201d and it \u201cis definitely not easy but we\u2019re trying to approach this with a very simple goal which is how do we earn more trust.\u201d He also said the company is \u201cgetting better and better, step by step.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2>\u2018Our Policies and Algorithms\u2019 Do Not Discriminate Against Conservatives\u00a0 \u00a0<\/h2>\n<p>In a September 2018 congressional hearing in response to the Vice story, Texas Republican Rep. Joe Barton asked Dorsey if Twitter discriminated against conservatives. \u201cNo, our policies and our algorithms don\u2019t take into consideration any affiliation, philosophy, or viewpoint,\u201d said Dorsey, who then spent the rest of the hearing\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.engadget.com\/2018-09-05-twitter-shadow-banning-bug-accounts-jack-dorsey.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">blaming<\/a>\u00a0the censorship on a mistake in Twitter\u2019s algorithm.\u00a0<\/p>\n<h2>\u2018No,\u2019 Twitter Is Not \u2018Rigged to Censor Conservatives\u2019<\/h2>\n<p>In the same congressional hearing, Rep. Mike Doyle\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/media\/twitter-files-flashback-jack-dorsey-testified-oath-twitter-censor-shadow-ban-conservatives\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">asked<\/a>\u00a0Dorsey if Twitter is \u201crigged to censor conservatives.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo,\u201d Dorsey responded. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cAre you censoring people?\u201d Doyle asked. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo,\u201d Dorsey answered again. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cTwitter\u2019s shadow-banning prominent Republicans \u2026 is that true?\u201d Doyle pressed. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2>\u2018No,\u2019 Twitter Does Not Shadowban Based on Politics<\/h2>\n<p>In October 2020, Dorsey admitted that the suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story was \u201cnot great,\u201d to which conservative commentator Dave Rubin <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/RubinReport\/status\/1316528583314010112?s=20&#038;t=b0Xoi7w7PW6hKysGnAoFvA\">said<\/a>, \u201cDo you shadowban based on political beliefs? Simple yes or no will do.\u201d Dorsey emphatically answered, \u201cNo.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Naturally, the corporate media accepted Twitter execs\u2019 shadowbanning denial at face value. A 2018\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/2018\/9\/6\/17824652\/twitter-dorsey-energy-and-commerce-hearing-shadow-banning\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Vox<\/a>\u00a0article called the idea that prominent Republicans were being shadowbanned a \u201cpersistent conspiracy theory.\u201d In 2018,\u00a0a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/outlook\/five-myths\/five-myths-about-twitter\/2018\/08\/23\/74073e16-a640-11e8-a656-943eefab5daf_story.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Washington Post<\/a>\u00a0article about Twitter \u201cmyths\u201d said the \u201c[claim] that Twitter is systemically banning conservatives from the platform because of their ideology\u201d is \u201ca conspiracy theory from the fringes of the Internet [that] has crept into the mainstream.\u201d And in March 2019, MSNBC\u2019s Kasie Hunt\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/tomselliott\/status\/1108012062444269568?s=20&#038;t=r0N-MAdiHzHedhBq8D2XtQ\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">said<\/a> the idea that Twitter \u201cshadow bans\u201d conservatives \u201chas been widely debunked.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<h2>The Shadowbanning Is Real<\/h2>\n<p>The idea that Twitter\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/bariweiss\/status\/1601009744575025152?s=20&#038;t=sCHhdXMYKS4-JqsD7MJ7yQ\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">allowed<\/a> users to \u201cshare ideas\u201d \u201cwithout barriers\u201d (as its mission says) was a bald-faced lie. Twitter\u2019s political discrimination was not exclusively algorithmic. The deliberate silencing of conservative voices was carried out by regular employees and the tippy top of Twitter\u2019s corporate ladder.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>As Weiss reported, Twitter referred to its shadowbanning under the moniker \u201cVisibility Filtering,\u201d under which it was able to \u201cblock searches of individual users; to limit the scope of a particular tweet\u2019s discoverability; to block select users\u2019 posts from ever appearing on the \u2018trending\u2019 page, and from inclusion in hashtag searches.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Charlie Kirk\u2019s account contained an internal warning label that read \u201cDo Not Amplify.\u201d Twitter secretly condemned Bhattacharya to a \u201cTrends Blacklist\u201d and put Bongino on a \u201csearch blacklist.\u201d\u00a0Libs of TikTok was suspended numerous times for allegedly violating the company\u2019s \u201chateful conduct\u201d policy, but insider communications revealed that \u201cafter her seventh suspension, the [SIP-PES] committee acknowledged that \u2018LTT has not directly engaged in behavior violative of the Hateful Conduct policy.\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Twitter, however, \u201cjustified her suspensions internally by claiming her posts encouraged online harassment of \u2018hospitals and medical providers\u2019 by insinuating \u2018that gender-affirming healthcare is equivalent to child abuse or grooming,\u2019\u201d reported Weiss.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Shadowbanning doesn\u2019t appear to be leaving Twitter anytime soon. Many thought criminals, like The Federalist\u2019s CEO and co-founder Sean Davis, are still shadowbanned, with Musk\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/elonmusk\/status\/1593673339826212864?s=20&#038;t=r0N-MAdiHzHedhBq8D2XtQ\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">writing<\/a>\u00a0in November that he would keep some form of shadowbanning on the app because, according to him, \u201cfreedom of speech\u201d does not include \u201cfreedom of reach.\u201d Thursday night, Musk\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/elonmusk\/status\/1598752139278532610?s=20&#038;t=r0N-MAdiHzHedhBq8D2XtQ\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">reiterated<\/a>\u00a0that Twitter would continue to secretly censor, and instead of currently censored users being freed, Musk said they would have to \u201cappeal\u201d their shadowbans.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Freedom of speech without freedom of reach is not freedom. No matter if it\u2019s Musk or his predecessors doing the censoring, the toxic practice is slowly dismantling the digital exchange of ideas one shadowbanned tweet at a time.<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\" \/>\n<p>\n  Evita Duffy is a staff writer to The Federalist and the co-founder of the Chicago Thinker. She loves the Midwest, lumberjack sports, writing, and her family. Follow her on Twitter at @evitaduffy_1 or contact her at evita@thefederalist.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Remember all the times Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and top Twitter lawyer Vijaya Gadde assured us that Twitter neither shadowbans nor targets conservatives? Well, they lied.\u00a0 In the second installment<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1897991,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[547],"tags":[5458,4539,7310,5450,3819,7040,4126,6900],"class_list":["post-1771047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-bongino-report","tag-bongino","tag-conservatives","tag-execs","tag-lied","tag-report","tag-shadowbanning","tag-times","tag-twitters"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1771047","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1771047"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1771047\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1897991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1771047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1771047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1771047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}