Conservatives have said for years that social media giants like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram have targeted them. The cat is finally out of the bag.
And Elon Musk broke his silence on this plot to censor conservatives.
Since taking over Twitter, Elon Musk has turned the company on its head.
The social media behemoth has gone from a Leftist playhouse to a booming business.
That hasn’t sat well with many of the old-guard liberals in the tech industry, but with layoffs and steam-lining coming down across the board, they don’t have much room to complain.
Along with many of these reforms, Elon Musk exposed how Twitter had cooperated with government officials to flag and delete tweets they deemed as misinformation.
Many, if not most, of these tweets were from conservative commentators and politicians.
But even more terrifying is Musk’s admission that the platform “shadowbanned” conservatives.
Shadowbanning is when the account remains online and is allowed to tweet, but tweets are hidden from other people. In short, it’s like shouting in an echo chamber.
Conservative commentator Dave Rubin reported on Thursday that he had spent the last two weeks at Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters talking to engineers, product managers, and Elon Musk and learned that the team still “have more questions than answers” including about a batch of “secret” labels used to shadowban conservatives beyond the Twitter Files revelations.
Rubin tweeted, “Accounts aren’t just hit with labels that are obvious to insiders. They now found more ‘secret’ labels which are causing shadowbans. My account was hit with all three; ‘Recent abuse strike,’ ‘Recent misinformation strike’, ‘Recent suspension strike.'”
“It’s unclear so far what these strikes actually do, but for sure they suppress views and recommendations, they are trying to figure out to what extent. I also had many innocuous tweets labeled NSFW or NSFA (not safe for ads) which affect visibility in the timeline.
“Also, there’s an entire KeyWord database so that machine learning makes sure not to promote violence, p**n etc., but it’s a mess of overreaching words. Literally the word ‘gay’ was on the KeyWord list which would make you not advertiser friendly and harm the tweet in the algo,” Rubin tweeted.
Rubin was suspended from Twitter in July 2022 for defending Jordan Peterson’s remark about Elliot Page.
“Backing up for a sec, they found the ‘recent suspension strike’ on my account most interesting because it was fro July 2022, when I was suspended for calling out @jordanbpeterson’s unjust suspension. So though suspension was reversed the action on the account remained,” Rubin tweeted.
Backing up for a sec, they found the “recent suspension strike” on my account most interesting because it was fro July 2022, when I was suspended for calling out @jordanbpeterson’s unjust suspension. So though suspension was reversed the action on the account remained.
— Dave Rubin (@RubinReport) January 26, 2023
On December 8, Bari Weiss tweeted round 2 of the Twitter files, confirming that the social media platform’s leadership built blacklists and participated in shadowbanning for years under the supervision of Vijaya Gadde, former Twitter lead counsel and former head of Twitter Trust and Safety Yoel Roth.
Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk was tagged with a “Do Not Amplify” tag as an example of shadowbanning under prior Twitter management. Dan Bongino, a talk show host, was branded with a “Search Blacklist” tag, which had a similar suppressive effect.
Rubin said, “Elon was bringing people in and out constantly and seems to be aware of pretty much every issue. He thinks maybe the entire code has to be torn down and start from scratch. At the end last night he said that the whole situation is ‘a flaming dumpster rolling down the street.'”
“So I assure you they are aware of the problems and Elon and engineers are there all night trying to untie this crazy knot. Some changes they’ve made, like the ‘For You’ tab, have confused people and hurt engagement for accounts who have gotten the NSFA label without knowing,” Rubin added.
So I assure you they are aware of the problems and Elon and engineers are there all night trying to untie this crazy knot. Some changes they’ve made, like the “For You” tab, have confused people and hurt engagement for accounts who have gotten the NSFA label without knowing.
— Dave Rubin (@RubinReport) January 26, 2023
Musk commented on Rubin’s tweets, saying, “Accurate thread.”
Accurate thread
— Mr. Tweet (@elonmusk) January 26, 2023
Stay tuned to DC Daily Journal.
