Twitter Files Reveals Blacklists and Shadowbanning – Elon Musk Is Embracing the Same Tactics
In the latest Twitter Files exposé, it was revealed that Twitter shadowbanned accounts to suppress their reach and virality, especially prominent conservatives. There’s just one problem — these tools are almost identical to Elon Musk’s current policy of “freedom of speech, not freedom of reach.” Based on Musk’s comments, it seems unlikely any of the freshly exposed tools are going to be dropped from the platform, leaving Americans seeking free speech at the mercy of nebulous terms like “hate speech.”
Forbes reports that according to former New York Times columnist Bari Weiss, Twitter created “secret blacklists” and conducted a covert operation to reduce the visibility of certain tweets, accounts, and topics. This information comes from the second round of Elon Musk’s “Twitter Files,” which were released on Thursday. These practices, reported on for many years by Breitbart News, are just now being proven true with the release of insider information from the left-wing company.
Many have also noted that Twitter’s previous moderation actions mirror Musk’s own Twitter policy of “freedom of speech, not freedom of reach,” meaning that the platform will continue to shadowban and reduce the reach of certain users and posts. In fact, Musk has bragged about lowering the impressions of tweets containing “hate speech,” likely using the exact tools described in the Twitter Files. “Hate speech” is a word seemingly described differently by every person asked, for example, former Twitter leadership banned women under the hate speech policy for saying that men cannot be women.
False, hate speech impressions are actually down by 1/3 for Twitter now vs prior to acquisition @CommunityNotes
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 8, 2022
Twitter employees allegedly blacklisted a number of accounts, including Stanford health policy professor Jay Bhattacharya, conservative figures Dan Bongino and Charlie Kirk, and the controversial right-wing TikTok account “Libs of TikTok,” according to Weiss. These are just a few examples of what was clearly a common moderation practice for the leftist anti-Trump platform. (Read more from “Twitter Files Reveals Blacklists and Shadowbanning – Elon Musk Is Embracing the Same Tactics” HERE)
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