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.
The shadow banning concept involves fraud though. Anyone who pays to target a conservative audience from an advertising standpoint (or however they generate revenue) would have standing.
I sens a class action CONSUMER FRAUD lawsuit forthcoming...
It seems to me that we are at a fundamental disadvantage here. Conservatives are by their very nature independent and self-sufficient. We tend not to engage in groupthink, or band together toward mutual advantage. A site like Freerepublic or (maybe) the Mormon Church is about as close as we come to that.
Liberals school like fish, and push anyone not like them out. They live in a round-the-clock echo chamber.
A true conservative recognizes Twitter’s right to do exactly what they’re doing - They’re a private business providing a “free” service that has attracted for better or worse a large swath of followers. Is a cult really any different?
The problem is, I can’t think of any exclusively “conservative” companies off the top of my head. Even companies formed by conservative entrepreneurs tend not to cull out liberals, preferring a meritocratic approach to employee diversity rather than a political one.
I don’t think it’s pearl-clutching to say our individuality is a liability in this conflict. Conservatives live independently and will be boiled alive individually as the hive mind who hates us finds ever more buttons and knobs to turn the heat up on us.
We can decry the behavior of the media, schools, Facebook, Google, and Twitter until the cows come home, but knowing the truth doesn’t protect us from it. We must put aside our individuality and fight back as one if we’re to have a chance.
I'm sure its just a coincidence.
It’s a private company so they can ban whoever they like. Just like JR can ban anyone here.
On the other hand, I think being ethical will dictate Twitter would tell everyone the rules upfront.
The scarier thing is that those under, oh, say 25 years old openly ADVOCATE for crap like this!
Well said.
BTTT.
The only reason I have a Twitter and Facebook account are to log into comment boards on newspapers/magazines and some places require you link one or the other.
Both are fake, neither have a real name and one is even a World of Warcraft character from when I used to play that game.
I am one of those fake users.
Twitter is a joke. I only use it for news, but not to tweet.
The power of Trump is that they really can’t ban him without GOOD cause. So he’s carrying the twitter conservative torch.
I don’t do twitter. 140 characters is just enough room to get yourself in huge trouble. First time I ever used my cell phone to post here (about seven years ago) I tried to be brief and was so utterly misunderstood that I was banned without warning.
I was once on a then-popular news/opinion site. The owner implemented an upvote/downvote system as part of his shift to the left.
If leftists down-voted you, you were likely to get banned.
If someone down-voted a leftist, the person who issued the down-voting was likely to get banned. It was all about eliminating dissenting voices.
.
Leftist politics in general are “all about eliminating dissenting voices.”
.
Leftist politics in general are “all about eliminating dissenting voices.”
One way...... or another............................
“The first amendment does not apply to private corporations. They can run their site as they see fit. The 1st Amendment applies to the government, not private businesses.”
Private businesses, as well as public corporations who advertise on Twitter have the right to know what their policies are. “Advertise with us, and by the way, we are secretly censoring some of your customers who may say things” is not a very good marketing strategy.
I imagine that Twitter's lawyers will argue that the censorship is disclosed inferentially in the concept of community standards to which users consent when creating an account. But if Twitter exercises censorship while creating the illusion that one is still on the board, it is defrauding its users. People who are censored are being defrauded of the time and effort it takes to post. Even more importantly, they being silenced by being enticed to speak to an empty room while thinking they are addressing a community that they have chosen to engage.
I have no objection to private service providers policing their sites. If it were me, I'd start with banning vulgar and profane words and move on from there to abusive language and personal attacks. But I would support a regulation requiring that people who are censored be notified of the fact, and why. The censorship should be visible on the board as wellso that users are aware when a discussion that they presume is open is, in fact, being controlled and steered.
140?
On November 7, 2017, the limit was doubled to 280 characters for all languages except Japanese, Korean and Chinese.......
To them, 1984 was an instruction manual................
Nope. It’s a private corporation.
You agree to abide by their rules when you sign up.................
Have a sockpuppet account following you. If the sock doesn’t get your posts, you know you’ve been gagged.
I’m not on Twitter, so I don’t know how it works but that’s what I might try.
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