Trump warns Twitter it will be investigated for ‘SHADOW BANNING’ conservatives as he calls practice of depressing their exposure ‘discriminatory and illegal’
Published report found conservatives’ exposure on Twitter is artificially limited
President blew up about the practice on Thursday, claiming it’s ‘discriminatory and illegal’ and promising some sort of investigation
Twitter’s automatic fill-in engine doesn’t suggest some right-wingers’ accounts when the first few letter of their names are typed
That problem isn’t universal among conservatives but liberals have been unaffected
House Majority Leader Mevin McCarthy tweeted: ‘It’s time to rise up and demand accountability from Big Tech’
By DAVID MARTOSKO
DAILYMAIL.COM
26 July 2018
Donald Trump entered a contentious battle over online censorship on Thursday, blasting privately-owned Twitter for allegedly depressing the exposure of messages from its conservaitve users.
‘Twitter “SHADOW BANNING” prominent Republicans. Not good’ the president boomed, ironically on his globally unmissable Twitter account.
‘We will look into this discriminatory and illegal practice at once! Many complaints.’
It’s unclear what the administration could do to challenge Twitter for sorting content and delivering it selectively to users based on a computer algorithm.
It’s also not obvious what law Trump believes the platform’s management might be violating.
But much of the social media right-wing is up in arms over what they see as a biased protocol that regulraly disadvantages them in the marketplace of ideas.
And Trump isn’t the only powerful Republican to push back.
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarty tweeted on Wednesday that ‘[s]ocial media is being rigged to censor conservatives.’
‘It’s time to rise up and demand accountability from Big Tech. WE WILL NOT BE SILENCED. #StopTheBias,’ he wrote.
The president’s tweet followed a widely discussed VICE News story dissecting Twitter’s automated system that fills in names based on the first few typed characters in a search box.
Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel doesn’t show up the way her adversaries’ do, despite her unusual first name.
Several conservative Republican congressmen have the same problem, as well as Donald Trump Jr.’s spokesman Andrew Surabian.
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