Trump accuses Twitter of stifling Republicans, offers no evidence

[webfact]

Trump accuses Twitter of stifling Republicans, offers no evidence

By Doina Chiacu

 

A man reads tweets on his phone in front of a displayed Twitter logo in Bordeaux, southwestern France, March 10, 2016. REUTERS/Regis Duvignau/Illustration/Files

 

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump accused Twitter Inc on Thursday of restricting the visibility of prominent U.S. Republicans, without providing evidence, and the avid user of the social media platform promised to investigate.

 

Trump accused the company of targeting fellow Republicans with a practice dubbed "shadow banning," limiting the visibility of a Twitter user including in the platform's auto-populated dropdown search box. Twitter denied "shadow banning" anyone.

 

"Twitter 'SHADOW BANNING' prominent Republicans. Not good. We will look into this discriminatory and illegal practice at once!" Trump wrote in a Twitter post.

 

It was not clear whether Trump planned to ask federal regulators to investigate. The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

 

"We don't shadow ban, and we certainly don't shadow ban based on political viewpoints," Twitter Chief Executive Jack Dorsey said in a tweet late on Thursday.

 

In a separate blog post, Twitter said http://bit.ly/2mK7MzL it identified an issue where some accounts weren't auto-suggested in search even when people were searching for their specific name.

 

Hundreds of thousands of accounts were impacted by this issue, including those of Republican and Democratic politicians, the social media company said.

 

Twitter said it does not shadow ban, however, it does rank tweets and search results. "We do this because Twitter is most useful when it's immediately relevant."

 

Trump is a high-profile and frequent user of Twitter, offering opinions, announcing policies and often attacking adversaries. But some Trump supporters have been saying for months that Republican and conservative candidates are being stifled on social media.

 

Trump's tweet followed a Vice news report on Wednesday that Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel and other Republicans including the president's son Donald Trump Jr.'s spokesman were being "shadow banned."

 

"The notion that social media companies would suppress certain political points of view should concern every American. Twitter owes the public answers to what's really going on," McDaniel wrote on Twitter.

 

Twitter instituted a policy change on July 12 to increase the service's credibility and reduce suspected fraud. That change cost its 100 most popular users about 2 percent of their followers, on average, according to social media data firm Keyhole.

 

The change, former example, cost Democratic former President Barack Obama 2 million followers by the morning after the change and singers Katy Perry and Justin Bieber each lost 3 million, the Washington Post reported, citing analytics company Twitter Counter. The report said Trump's account lost more than 200,000 of its 53 million followers.

 

Republican U.S. Representative Matt Gaetz blamed changes in Twitter policies for a drop in his following.

 

"Our office is aware of claims that Twitter has discriminated against multiple accounts maintained by Congressman Gaetz. We are investigating the depths and impact of these serious charges," his office said in a statement.

 

At a hearing last week before the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee, Facebook, Google parent company Alphabet Inc and Twitter said they did not discriminate against content for political reasons.

 

Twitter's senior strategist Nick Pickles testified that the company does not discriminate against conservatives and works to make neutral decisions. "Our purpose is to serve the conversation, not to make value judgments on personal beliefs," Pickles said.

 

Twitter shares, which have been trading lower since Facebook Inc's disappointing earnings late on Wednesday, closed down nearly 3 percent at $42.94 on Thursday.

 

(Reporting by Doina Chiacu; Additional reporting Diane Bartz and Mark Hosenball in Washington, Subrat Patnaik and Munsif Vengattil in Bengaluru; Editing by Will Dunham and Gopakumar Warrier)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2018-07-27

[Odysseus123]

"In the kingdom of the crazies the one eyed twitterer is king."

 

Desiderius Erasmus commenting on his new smartphone-1505 AD.

[keith101]

Anything to deflect away from Putin and Russia

[zaphod reborn]

1 hour ago, webfact said:

President Donald Trump accused Twitter Inc on Thursday of restricting the visibility of prominent U.S. Republicans

He means Alex Jones who had some tweets removed as being hate speech, such as simulating the assassination of Robert Mueller.

 

Quote

Republican U.S. Representative Matt Gaetz blamed changes in Twitter policies for a drop in his following.

And it has nothing to do with people figuring out that Goetz was the unnamed Congressional Candidate #1 in Mueller's DNC/DNCC hacking indictment alleging that he was the American co-conspirator who received stolen emails from foreign agents.

Edited July 27, 2018 by zaphod reborn

[Silurian]

1 hour ago, webfact said:

offers no evidence

 

As is typical of any mouth fart that comes out of the Reality TV Con Artist's blow hole. Just some random statement that he wants to be true and feeds to his base as facts without any basis in reality.

Edited July 27, 2018 by Silurian

[billd766]

Perhaps it was a fake tweet.

[Emster23]

Look over in bin marked "evidunce"

Besides this latest dip into fantasy land, you can also find info on Obama bugging him, Obamas Kenyan birth certificate and scads of other "trooth"

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

More fake news from the King of Fake News pronouncements.

 

Twitter's changes affected lots of accounts, regardless of political persuasion.  And that's the way it should be.

 

Deflect and distract. Deflect and distract.

[JulesMad]

The biggest liar in the world is accusing other liars

Who to believe?!? Anyone but the hypocrite lying coward...

[Srinivas]

project veritas already proved this straight from twitter engineers lol

look it up , it might help alleviate some trump derangement syndrome symptoms.

[Spike1938]

3 minutes ago, Srinivas said:

project veritas already proved this straight from twitter engineers lol

look it up , it might help alleviate some trump derangement syndrome symptoms.

Project Veritas? James O'Keefe? A totally discredited researcher (I use that term very loosely) who presents as much fake stuff as the Liar-in-Chief. 

[Srinivas]

18 minutes ago, Spike1938 said:

Project Veritas? James O'Keefe? A totally discredited researcher (I use that term very loosely) who presents as much fake stuff as the Liar-in-Chief. 

if blaming the messenger works for you then carry on with your tds.

but there is help

 

 

[Tug]

Oh no how else can Donald and Putin rig our elections 

[sateuk]

9 hours ago, Emster23 said:

Look over in bin marked "evidunce"

Besides this latest dip into fantasy land, you can also find info on Obama bugging him, Obamas Kenyan birth certificate and scads of other "trooth"

I'm English so nothing to do with me really but you must be crazy coz you love Obama what did he do for your country?  After 8 years nothing.  Trump got voted In because America wanted change from normal politicians he won and will win again if he stands again so get over yourself he ain't no dunce he ain't got what he's got for being stupid !

[TonyClifton]

How can anyone claim there is no evidence?  Watch the Congressional testimony from Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube on Capitol Hill for all the evidence you need.

[Srinivas]

13 hours ago, TonyClifton said:

How can anyone claim there is no evidence?  Watch the Congressional testimony from Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube on Capitol Hill for all the evidence you need.

they continue believing made up stories like children. Even after Twitter admits to shadow banning. 

https://www.projectveritas.com/2018/01/11/undercover-video-twitter-engineers-to-ban-a-way-of-talking-through-shadow-banning-algorithms-to-censor-opposing-political-opinions/

[Rimmer]

A couple of off topic troll posts have been removed

[bristolboy]

2 hours ago, Srinivas said:

they continue believing made up stories like children. Even after Twitter admits to shadow banning. 

https://www.projectveritas.com/2018/01/11/undercover-video-twitter-engineers-to-ban-a-way-of-talking-through-shadow-banning-algorithms-to-censor-opposing-political-opinions/

project veritas? really? the home of the falsely edited video?

[mtls2005]

What is 'shadow banning', and why did Trump tweet about it?

 

On Wednesday a Vice News story reported that some senior Republican officials were not visible in automatic search results. Vice framed this as “shadow banning” without providing any evidence that it was deliberate.

Conservative outlets such as Infowars and Breitbart soon picked up the story, which they saw as validation of their longstanding suspicions.

 

Then, on Thursday morning, Project Veritas – the rightwing muckraker James O’Keefe’s entrapment-based media enterprise – released a video claiming to show a Twitter engineer admitting to the practice. By early Thursday, conservative media outlets had published dozens of articles on the controversy.

 

From there, the issue made a familiar journey through Fox News into Trump’s brain, and then onto his Twitter account.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/jul/26/what-is-shadow-banning-conservatives-twitter-trump

 

One assumes Trump saw Rep. Matt "DUI" Gaetz on Fox News (Brett, Tucker, all-star panel complaining about this topic.  Matt is also in hot water re: asking the Ruskies, via his pal Stoney, for dirt on his opponent. Evidently Jim "Do you like gladiator movies" Jordan is also 'wrestling' with this issue.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Srinivas]

4 hours ago, bristolboy said:

project veritas? really? the home of the falsely edited video?

fake videos right? or fake news lol 

here is a fun story from reuters 

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-twitter-trump/ex-twitter-worker-claims-responsibility-for-trumps-account-shutdown-idUSKBN1DU04H

[bristolboy]

2 minutes ago, Srinivas said:

fake videos right? or fake news lol 

here is a fun story from reuters 

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-twitter-trump/ex-twitter-worker-claims-responsibility-for-trumps-account-shutdown-idUSKBN1DU04H

Did you read the story? An ex contrat worker  shut down Trump's twitter account for 11 minutes on his last shift for the company. It was a spur-of-the-moment-thing. You got some other source that says different?

[Odysseus123]

8 minutes ago, bristolboy said:

Did you read the story? An ex contrat worker  shut down Trump's twitter account for 11 minutes on his last shift for the company. It was a spur-of-the-moment-thing. You got some other source that says different?

Did he?

 

You mean it can be done?

 

"Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the lord

"Glory..glory hallelujah....and his tweets  are finally gone.."

Edited July 28, 2018 by Odysseus123

[Srinivas]

1 hour ago, bristolboy said:

Did you read the story? An ex contrat worker  shut down Trump's twitter account for 11 minutes on his last shift for the company. It was a spur-of-the-moment-thing. You got some other source that says different?

Funny culture at Twitter no? Between the engineer videos from Okeefe and this knuckle head lol

Well Glen Greenwald seems to think that the twitter clarification for shadow banning was plain silly. Enjoy

https://twitchy.com/sarahd-313035/2018/07/27/huge-mistake-glenn-greenwald-slams-twitters-obnoxious-explanation-for-shadow-banning-conservatives/

[bristolboy]

26 minutes ago, Srinivas said:

Funny culture at Twitter no? Between the engineer videos from Okeefe and this knuckle head lol

Well Glen Greenwald seems to think that the twitter clarification for shadow banning was plain silly. Enjoy

https://twitchy.com/sarahd-313035/2018/07/27/huge-mistake-glenn-greenwald-slams-twitters-obnoxious-explanation-for-shadow-banning-conservatives/

I started to look at the O'Keefe video and as usual it was a highly edited compendium of snippets. He's been caught out before engaging in deceptive editing and this looks like more of the same.

[Srinivas]

8 minutes ago, bristolboy said:

I started to look at the O'Keefe video and as usual it was a highly edited compendium of snippets. He's been caught out before engaging in deceptive editing and this looks like more of the same.

Well Twitters ridiculous explanation says it all for me. Thats about as close to an admission as we'll ever get andfor me it's settled. 

This kinda stuff does happen at social media platforms,media companies.See thailand. Nothing shocking ? really, especially after such a snowflake melting historic upset election.The political climate is ripe for such antics like those fake 2016 election polls.  I'm enjoying the show. 

 

[bristolboy]

2 minutes ago, Srinivas said:

Well Twitters ridiculous explanation says it all for me. Thats about as close to an admission as we'll ever get andfor me it's settled. 

This kinda stuff does happen at social media platforms,media companies.See thailand. Nothing shocking ? really, especially after such a snowflake melting historic upset election.The political climate is ripe for such antics like those fake 2016 election polls.  I'm enjoying the show. 

 

Except of course, where's your evidence that twitter applies shadow banning primarily to right wing twitterers? That doesn't seem to be what Greenwald is saying at all.

[neeray]

On ‎7‎/‎27‎/‎2018 at 1:40 AM, Silurian said:

 

As is typical of any mouth fart that comes out of the Reality TV Con Artist's blow hole. Just some random statement that he wants to be true and feeds to his base as facts without any basis in reality.

Perfectly and graphically stated Silurian.

 

As we all know, it is nothing new for Trump to accuse "without providing evidence". He is very impulsive and thus just throws any thought out there that enters his non-genius pea brain.

 

 

 

[Srinivas]

24 minutes ago, bristolboy said:

Except of course, where's your evidence that twitter applies shadow banning primarily to right wing twitterers? That doesn't seem to be what Greenwald is saying at all.

lol, my evidence is Twitters own retarded explanation. Sorry man thats all i got.

You win??good night.

[bristolboy]

9 hours ago, Srinivas said:

lol, my evidence is Twitters own retarded explanation. Sorry man thats all i got.

You win??good night.

Which was an explanation of shadow banning, but in no way an admission that Twitter applied or applies it selectively based on political opinions of the twitterer.

Edited July 29, 2018 by bristolboy

[riclag]

 Zuckerberg said ,Silicon valley is very liberal left leaning!

I would agree  all social media are targeting alternative views Youtube ,twitter ,FB.

Mr. Cruz, who ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, has argued in the past the Facebook has policies and algorithms that effectively “shadow ban” conservatives. 

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/apr/10/zuckerberg-admits-silicon-valley-extremely-left-le/ 

This is just  another form of the  resistance  to change!