Twitter Is Limiting the Visibility of Prominent Republicans In Search Results (vice.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from VICE News: Twitter is limiting the visibility of prominent Republicans in search results -- a technique known as "shadow banning" -- in what it says is a side effect of its attempts to improve the quality of discourse on the platform. The Republican Party chair Ronna McDaniel, several conservative Republican congressmen, and Donald Trump Jr.'s spokesman no longer appear in the auto-populated drop-down search box on Twitter, VICE News has learned. It's a shift that diminishes their reach on the platform -- and it's the same one being deployed against prominent racists to limit their visibility. The profiles continue to appear when conducting a full search, but not in the more convenient and visible drop-down bar. (The accounts appear to also populate if you already follow the person.)

Democrats are not being "shadow banned" in the same way, according to a VICE News review. McDaniel's counterpart, Democratic Party chair Tom Perez, and liberal members of Congress -- including Reps. Maxine Waters, Joe Kennedy III, Keith Ellison, and Mark Pocan -- all continue to appear in drop-down search results. Not a single member of the 78-person Progressive Caucus faces the same situation in Twitter's search. Presented with screenshots of the searches, a Twitter spokesperson told VICE News: "We are aware that some accounts are not automatically populating in our search box and shipping a change to address this." Asked why only conservative Republicans appear to be affected and not liberal Democrats, the spokesperson wrote: "I'd emphasize that our technology is based on account *behavior* not the content of Tweets."

Comments

Really poorly written article

[gurps_npc]

First, private companies can do what they want, there is no first amendment right for equal access. There is nothing illegal or even unethical for Twitter to say "Hey, we don't like these particular politicians and we will not promote their views."

In fact, we expect them to do that. Other media companies, like Fox "News" and MSNBC do it all the time. It is legal, appropriate and COMMON behavior.

But more importantly than that, the article itself was incredibly biased. They made little effort to explain what Twitter claimed it was doing. They used vague words to describe both the behavior they were complaining about and the criteria that twitter used. That might have been twitter's fault, but still, it demonstrates horrible reporting.

A fair piece would at least have at least given Twitter's claims a hearing, even if they then dismantled them.

Frankly, this piece looks like it was written by Russians, not HBO.

Re:Liberals

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong. Liberals try to make their own reality and ban anyone who disagrees with it as hate speech.

Also, there are two genders.

Re:Please for the love of god

[giggleloop]

No. The Libertarian policy is "Live and Let Die", as in, I don't give a crap what happens to you as long as I've got mine.

Re: It's not the content, it's how you say it

[Mashiki]

You should remember that Clinton's impeachment was for lying, while in office. If you think people really give a shit about Trump banging someone while he wasn't even a political candidate you're right out to lunch. If you really want to fix your out-of-control healthcare costs, get obamacare cancelled. Keep in mind that Trump thinks very highly of Canada and Australia's immigration system, which work on a point-merit system. That of course would never work with democrats, who seem to believe that the only solution is open borders. As for social security? It's dead, been raided too often by too many governments repeatedly.

Re:Please for the love of god

[drinkypoo]

It was the Democrats that resisted the end of slavery.

You mean before they were renamed Republicans? Yeah ok

It's just that with Libertarianism, the girl next door can be a slave master too.

Oh good! That's just what the world needs!