Donald Trump Accuses Social Media Companies Of ‘Shadow Banning’ Conservatives

On Saturday, President Donald Trump accused via Twitter social media companies of “totally discriminating against Republicans/Conservative voices” and said “we won’t let that happen.”

Trump previously made similar claims in July, when he accused Twitter of “‘shadow banning’ prominent Republicans.” In a statement last month Twitter made clear, “We do not shadow ban. You are always able to see the tweets from accounts you follow (although you may have to do more work to find them, like go directly to their profile). And we certainly don’t shadow ban based on political viewpoints or ideology.”

Trump’s tweets came after tech companies like Apple, Spotify, Facebook and YouTube have banned far right conspiracy theorist, Alex Jones, and his show Info Wars from their platform for violating standards by posting hate speech that “attacks or dehumanizes” others. Trump appeared on Jones’ program during the 2016 campaign and praised his “amazing” reputation.

In a CNN interview on Saturday, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey defended his company’s practices, saying, “Are we doing something according to political ideology or viewpoints? We are not. Period. We do not look at content with regards to political viewpoint or ideology. We look at behavior.” He added, “I think we need to constantly show that we are not adding our own bias, which I fully admit is left, is more left-leaning.”

Article by Steven Abendroth