Twitter Totalitarianism: Site Maintains “Whitelists” of Favored, Leftwing Twits, “Blacklists” of Dissident Right Enemies, and Engages in Shadowbanning (“Ghosting”) of the Latter, in Seeking to Crush Dissent, and Rig 2016 Election

 

 

[Of related interest: “Cheerios’ Super Bowl Comment Censorship—the PC Empire Strikes Back.”]
 

Re-posted by Nicholas Stix

I love Milo, but my problem with this article is that Breitbart engages in censorship, too, and not just of enemies, but of friends. A few weeks ago, I learned through my Disqus account that Breitbart’s thread Nazis had removed a comment by me at one of its articles last June that wasn’t even attacking it.

“Scalia Blasts Obamacare Ruling: ‘Words Have No Meaning,’” June 25, 2016
 

Creator Endowed to OldUSCGRD2 8 months ago

You don't understand Medicare. You have never contributed a dime for "your" Medicare. Every cent of Medicare tax you ever paid was used in real time to pay the premium subsidies of those using it at that time, or on whatever else Congress decided to spend it.
None of the monies you paid in Medicare taxes accrues to you nor resides in any form of personal account. Only the minimal amount of current Medicare premiums that you pay (if you are on Medicare) goes to support a small amount of the total cost of insuring you under Medicare. If you pay Medicare tax, you are paying general revenue taxes only. If you receive Medicare, you are receiving welfare, plain and simple.
 

nicholasstix to Creator Endowed 8 months ago
Removed

“If you receive Medicare, you are receiving welfare, plain and simple.”

That’s dangerous nonsense you’re spouting—the sort Scalia was warning against. No government service a person receives that he has paid taxes to support is “welfare.” Conversely, every social service a person receives without paying taxes for it, is welfare.

 
Creator Endowed to nicholasstix 8 months ago

If you are making the argument that there is some sort of moral equivalency to being compelled to hand over a portion of your income for years to pay for the health insurance premiums of others and, when it comes your turn, feeling justified in receiving the income of others compelled to pay for yours, then frankly I understand that argument. It is not a particularly valid argument from a logical standpoint, but I get it and won't quibble. However, if you are making the argument that the recipients are not receiving welfare, you are simply wrong and should study further. You said "Conversely, every social service a person receives without paying taxes for it, is welfare". When you receive thousands upon thousands of dollars of Medicare insurance premium support as a senior, you are not paying taxes for this (some high income or high worth individuals might be paying some). Your taxes were to support others and are long gone. By your own definition you are receiving welfare. Scalia would agree with me 100%.
 


EXCLUSIVE: Twitter Shadowbanning “Real and Happening Every Day” Says Inside Source
By Milo Yiannopoulos
16 Feb 2016
Breitbart

Rumours that Twitter has begun ‘shadowbanning’ politically inconvenient users have been confirmed by a source inside the company, who spoke exclusively to Breitbart Tech. His claim was corroborated by a senior editor at a major publisher.

According to the source, Twitter maintains a ‘whitelist’ of favoured Twitter accounts and a ‘blacklist’ of unfavoured accounts. Accounts on the whitelist are rioritized [sic] in search results, even if they’re not the most popular among users. Meanwhile, accounts on the blacklist have their posts hidden from both search results and other users’ timelines.

Our source was backed up by a senior editor at a major digital publisher, who told Breitbart that Twitter told him it deliberately whitelists and blacklists users. He added that he was afraid of the site’s power, noting that his tweets could disappear from users’ timelines if he got on the wrong side of the company.

Shadowbanning, sometimes known as “Stealth Banning” or “Hell Banning” [or “ghosting”] is commonly used by online community managers to block content posted by spammers. Instead of banning a user directly (which would alert the spammer to their status, prompting them to create a new account), their content is merely hidden from public view.

For site owners, the ideal shadowban is when a user never realizes he’s been shadowbanned.

However, Twitter isn’t merely targeting spammers. For weeks, users have been reporting that tweets from populist conservatives, members of the alternative right, cultural libertarians, and other anti-PC dissidents have disappeared from their timelines.

Among the users complaining of shadowbans are sci-fi author and alt-right figurehead Vox Day, geek culture blogger “Daddy Warpig,” and the popular pro-Trump account Ricky Vaughn. League of Gamers founder and former World of Warcraft team lead Mark Kern, as well as adult actress and anti-censorship activist Mercedes Carrera, have also reported that their tweets are not appearing on the timelines of their followers.

The pattern of shadowban reports, which skews towards the alt-right, the populist right, and cultural libertarians, follows close on the heels of Twitter’s establishment of a “Trust and Safety Council” packed with left-wing advocacy groups, as well as Islamic research centre the Wahid Institute.

It also follows my prediction that Twitter would use its influence to interfere in the 2016 presidential election by muffling conservative voices on the platform.

For close to a year now, Breitbart has covered Twitter’s march towards political censorship. In May 2015 Allum Bokhari reported that the site had begun to experiment with shadowbans, ostensibly to protect users from abuse. Then, as now, it was suspected that “protecting users from abuse” was an excuse to implement a system that would later be used for political censorship.

With shadowbans now confirmed by an inside source, there is little room for doubt that the platform is intent on silencing conservatives. Furthermore, it has demonstrated a complete lack of regard for transparency, concealing its shadowbanning system from users and hiding its political bias behind a veneer of opposition to online abuse. (In reality, the site turns a blind eye to abuse from left-wingers.)

Users in search of a transparent, politically unbiased platform will soon have to find — or build — an alternative.

Follow Milo Yiannopoulos (@Nero) on Twitter and Facebook, or write to him at milo@breitbart.com. Android users can download Milo Alert! to be notified about new articles when they are published.