Posted on 01/11/2018 6:11:10 AM PST by Red Badger
Steven Pierre, Twitter engineer explains “shadow banning,” says “it’s going to ban a way of talking” Former Twitter software engineer Abhinav Vadrevu on shadow banning: “they just think that no one is engaging with their content, when in reality, no one is seeing it” Former Twitter Content Review Agent Mo Norai explains banning process: “if it was a pro-Trump thing and I’m anti-Trump… I banned his whole account… it’s at your discretion” When asked if banning process was an unwritten rule, Norai adds “Very. A lot of unwritten rules… It was never written it was more said” Olinda Hassan, Policy Manager for Twitter Trust and Safety explains, “we’re trying to ‘down rank’… shitty people to not show up,” “we’re working [that] on right now” “Shadow banning” to be used to stealthily target political views- former Twitter engineer says, “that’s a thing” Censorship of certain political viewpoints to be automated via “machine learning” according to Twitter software engineer Parnay Singh, Twitter Direct Messaging Engineer, on machine learning algorithms, “you have like five thousand keywords to describe a redneck…” “the majority of it are for Republicans”
(San Francisco) In the latest undercover Project Veritas video investigation, current and former Twitter employees are on camera explaining steps the social media giant is taking to censor political content that they don’t like.
This video release follows the first undercover Twitter exposé Project Veritas released on January 10th which showed Twitter Senior Network Security Engineer Clay Haynes saying that Twitter is “more than happy to help the Department of Justice with their little [President Donald Trump] investigation.” Twitter responded to the video with a statement shortly after that release, stating “the individual depicted in this video was speaking in a personal capacity and does not represent of speak for Twitter.” The video released by Project Veritas today features eight employees, and a Project Veritas spokesman said there are more videos featuring additional employees coming.
On January 3rd 2018 at a San Francisco restaurant, Abhinov Vadrevu, a former Twitter Software Engineer explains a strategy, called “shadow banning,” that to his knowledge, Twitter has employed:
“One strategy is to shadow ban so you have ultimate control. The idea of a shadow ban is that you ban someone but they don’t know they’ve been banned, because they keep posting and no one sees their content. So they just think that no one is engaging with their content, when in reality, no one is seeing it.”
Twitter is in the process of automating censorship and banning, says Twitter Software Engineer Steven Pierre on December 8th of 2017:
“Every single conversation is going to be rated by a machine and the machine is going to say whether or not it’s a positive thing or a negative thing. And whether it’s positive or negative doesn’t (inaudible), it’s more like if somebody’s being aggressive or not. Right? Somebody’s just cursing at somebody, whatever, whatever. They may have point, but it will just vanish… It’s not going to ban the mindset, it’s going to ban, like, a way of talking.”
Olinda Hassan, a Policy Manager for Twitter’s Trust and Safety team explains on December 15th, 2017 at a Twitter holiday party that the development of a system of “down ranking” “shitty people” is in the works:
“Yeah. That’s something we’re working on. It’s something we’re working on. We’re trying to get the shitty people to not show up. It’s a product thing we’re working on right now.”
Former Twitter Engineer Conrado Miranda confirms on December 1st, 2017 that tools are already in place to censor pro-Trump or conservative content on the platform. When asked whether or not these capabilities exist, Miranda says, “that’s a thing.”
In a conversation with former Twitter Content Review Agent Mo Norai on May 16th, 2017, we learned that in the past Twitter would manually ban or censor Pro-Trump or conservative content. When asked about the process of banning accounts, Norai said, “On stuff like that it was more discretion on your view point, I guess how you felt about a particular matter…”
When asked to clarify if that process was automated Norai confirmed that it was not:
“Yeah, if they said this is: ‘Pro-Trump’ I don’t want it because it offends me, this, that. And I say I banned this whole thing, and it goes over here and they are like, ‘Oh you know what? I don’t like it too. You know what? Mo’s right, let’s go, let’s carry on, what’s next?'”
Norai also revealed that more left-leaning content would go through their selection process with less political scrutiny, “It would come through checked and then I would be like ‘Oh you know what? This is okay. Let it go.’”
Norai explains that this selection process wasn’t exactly Twitter policy, but rather they were following unwritten rules from the top:
“A lot of unwritten rules, and being that we’re in San Francisco, we’re in California, very liberal, a very blue state. You had to be… I mean as a company you can’t really say it because it would make you look bad, but behind closed doors are lots of rules.”
“There was, I would say… Twitter was probably about 90% Anti-Trump, maybe 99% Anti-Trump.”
At a San Francisco bar on January 5th, Pranay Singh details how the shadow-banning algorithms targeting right-leaning are engineered:
“Yeah you look for Trump, or America, and you have like five thousand keywords to describe a redneck. Then you look and parse all the messages, all the pictures, and then you look for stuff that matches that stuff.”
When asked if the majority of the algorithms are targeted against conservative or liberal users of Twitter, Singh said, “I would say majority of it are for Republicans.”
Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe believes the power over speech Silicon Valley tech giants has is unprecedented and dangerous:
“What kind of world do we live in where computer engineers are the gatekeepers of the ‘way people talk?’ This investigation brings forth information of profound public importance that educates people about how free they really are to express their views online.”
Project Veritas plans to release more undercover video from within Twitter in the coming days.
Mr. O’Keefe has just completed a book about this series entitled “AMERICAN PRAVDA: My fight for Truth in the Era of Fake News.” The book will be released by St. Martin’s Press on January 16, 2018.
I might add, the same applies to Facebook. I registered at Reddit during the campaign, but didn’t last long before the ban hammer hit me for a post that would have been fine at FR.
I see no practical use for it, except for regurgitating that which is usually already known.......Echo Chamber deluxe.
That and FaceBook are the ‘Gossip Fence’ of the 21st century....................
“You use their site, you play by their rules..............”
Which have to be put into the terms and conditions for the user to acknowledge prior to accessing the account.
Secretly employing algorithms to weed out speech which twitter dissents to is tantamount to violating first amendment rights. Frankly, based on what the engineer said, I see a major class action lawsuit by every conservative with a twitter account.
Both of them?..................
Yahoo does the same. Very Orwellian. Best response is to identify publicly all the Twitter, Yahoo,Facebook and Google executives that make these decisions and post their complete bios and as much personal information as is known on multiple on line sites. These people are anti American and are doing great harm to the country. It is necessary to retaliate in a lawful manner to make them accountable.
Yep, it’s TwitterDU.
Who is the free speech alternative to TwitterDU?
And now I know I’m a shitty deplorable!
I wonder, does the material they don’t approve of not even show up on the feed of the person posting it? I.e. if I already follow someone, or look them up in my browser, do I still see everything they’re posting, or does the “shadow ban” make things invisible to all but the poster?
Second, it will be interesting to see if Trump reacts to this exposure of his most useful tool. Presumably Twitter isn’t shadow-banning him because too many people would notice if something he wanted to post wasn’t visible. But, this would be an excellent excuse for him to excoriate Twitter for their leftist censorship, and to pull up stakes for a more even-handed tool. The only catch would be that he’d have to find a way to do it so they couldn’t launch some kind of legal action for destroying their stock price (which almost certainly would happen if he and Red America abandoned it).
With any luck, this exposure by O’Keefe will tank their stock first, so Trump can get out without being blamed for their collapse.
And by Twitter standards, I’m a Russian bot.
Scott Adams (Dilbert) went thru a phase where his followers weren’t seeing his tweets for no apparent reason - after he started speaking positively (and persuasively!) of Trump and garnering an audience for that pro-Trump content. I’m sure he’ll be talking about it today on his “coffee chats”.
You missed the point. It’s not that they’re afraid to tell you. It’s that shadow censorship is a more effective way to silence the unwanted speech because the speaker doesn’t know his message is not getting out.
Just watched the video.
Boy, what a bunch of degenerate, semiliterate “geniuses.” Conversations filled with “like, y’knows,” broken English and, of course, obscenities.
And the hip hop music in the background. Tells you all you need to know about the “culture” at Twitter.
More like a septic tank.
You will see it on your device but none of your followers will see it on theirs, ergo, you think it’s there but it’s not. It’s just on your device....................
Gee, that sounds a lot like:
ALINSKY’S RULES FOR RADICALS!.....................
There needs to be a mass exodus to Gab.ai. Let twitter die like Myspace.
MySpace is still around....................somewhere...........
Um, like, yeah...they’re really really really, um, like smart, ya know? Affirmative action and H1b, baby!
Yes! Identify, investigate, illuminate, ridicule, retaliate.
I know this can happen and I know it is happening to Donald Trump on Facebook.
He was getting 10s of thousands of likes every day and all of a sudden it just froze to next to nothing.
Yes I know the election was obviously a busy time from that point of view but it seemed to fall off a cliff. His FB presence has hardly grown since this election whereas his Twitter has massively.
I hope someone of importance reads this thread and passes on this information - it is happening and it needs exposing.
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