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Twitter reportedly admits to ‘shadow-banning’ damning tweet about Hillary to ‘keep people safe’

March 19, 2019 | | Print Article

Twitter admitted an error it made in blocking a post by a conservative commentator about Hillary Clinton working with Russians while also insisting it does not engage in “shadow-banning” any content.

The Federalist co-founder Sean Davis shared on Monday that the social media giant did, in fact, “shadowban” his tweet to “keep people safe” after he shared a screenshot of the transcript of former FBI lawyer Lisa Page discussing the agency’s urgent need in 2016 to find someone in the Trump campaign who was working with Russians to find damaging information about Clinton.

After tweeting the transcript portion, Davis noticed that he was able to see what he shared while logged into his account but others could not. He noted that he “had to re-publish my original Lisa Page transcript tweet because it was disappeared to everyone but me.”

Nearly a week after the tweet and following complaints by Davis, Twitter responded that it “corrected the issue” but did not explain what that issue was, as it noted that it will “sometimes mistakenly remove” content even though none of the “rules” were broken.

When questioned, the company reiterated that it “does not engage in bias and we categorically do not enforce so-called ‘shadow banning’ tactics. Period,” The Washington Times reported.

“We enforce the Twitter rules dispassionately and equally for all users, regardless of their background or political affiliation,” the company stated.

Davis explained how he even noticed there was a problem because of the “red flag” when there was little to no engagement on his original tweet.

But Davis noted that as bad as banning the important tweet was, what was “worse” was Twitter giving the “fraudulent impression” that the tweet was still up for others to see.

Donald Trump Jr. joined many other Twitter voices to express outrage over the decision to “keep people safe” by banning certain content.

While Twitter denies any form of shadow-banning occurs and that decisions it makes are not politically motivated, critics contend that political bias exists and affects the choices made by the social media platform, especially when the targeted tweets seem to be disproportionately from conservatives.

Rep. Devin Nunes is one who is now fighting back, filing a $250 million lawsuit against Twitter for allegedly “shadow-banning conservatives” and censoring viewpoints it disagrees with while allowing abusive behavior and tweets by others.

The California Republican and ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee accused Twitter of “knowingly hosting and monetizing content that is clearly abusive, hateful and defamatory – providing both a voice and financial incentive to the defamers – thereby facilitating defamation on its platform.”

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Frieda Powers
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