
Twitter and Periscope Shadowbans Dilbert creator - h43k3r
http://blog.dilbert.com/post/152204980091/twitter-and-periscope-shadowban-update
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unfathomable
Twitter has been shadow banning a lot of pro-trump people lately.

For example Barack Obama's brother, Malik. His entire feed is basically Trump
support and he was shadow banned the other day. I am happy that they have
corrected the issue, they were called out hard for it.

[https://twitter.com/search?q=from%3Aobamamalik%20shadow&src=...](https://twitter.com/search?q=from%3Aobamamalik%20shadow&src=typd)

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t0mbstone
His feed died right around the time that half the internet (and Twitter) died
due to the dyndns DDOS and he writes it off as a "coincidence" instead of the
most likely cause. I'm normally a fan of Scott Adams, but it feels like he's
getting a little tin foil hat as he is aging...

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danso
FWIW, he's been complaining about shadowbanning for at least a week, well
before the effects of the DDOS: [http://blog.dilbert.com/post/151981022076/is-
twitter-shadowb...](http://blog.dilbert.com/post/151981022076/is-twitter-
shadowbanning-me)

I feel like I know Twitter...but I honestly don't know what is meant by
shadowbanning in Twitter. If such a concept were to be possible, would it have
something to do with Twitter tweaking out Adams' tweets show up for users who
have their timelines set to be curated (instead of by timeliness)? This seems
like a conspiracy theory that Adams hasn't done much to independently
evaluate.

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saynsedit
I've been provably shadowbanned by Twitter before so it is something they
practice. N/s what happened in his case.

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john111
Censorship is a really concerning problem, with no obvious solution, when more
and more of our communication is published by privately owned third-parties.
The other frustrating thing is that this so often happens, and we don't even
get a response from the censoring party. I know there is no expectation of
free speech on a private platform, but it's still a serious social problem
when everyone voluntarily publishes there anyway.

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pklausler
I wish that I hadn't read this link. I've enjoyed Dilbert for many years, and
it will never be the same for me now that I know that Adams is crazy.

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jimejim
Yeah, you're a bit late to the crazy train when it comes to Adams. He's been
an unrefined troll online for quite some time. He'll talk politics or other
bullshit and then say it was all just a joke when he gets called on it.

I hope you don't also like Orson Scott Card...

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wyager
What has he done that's crazy? People here are calling him crazy for
supporting trump, but that's just a reflection of the political distribution
of the HN community. Has he done anything truly crazy?

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lintroller
It continues the conversation started by Ellen Pao cutting off Project
Include's connection with YC because of Peter Thiel donating money to Donald
Trump. As Sam Altman said in his tweet: "YC is not going to fire someone for
supporting a major party nominee".

I apologize for getting really political and I say that you are free to act
however you see fit but voting for Hillary isn't exactly taking the high road
and to act as if voting for Trump is some morally reprehensible evil while
condoning her candidacy seems disingenuous.

~~~
464192002d7fe1c
Agreed.

I have conversations with a lot of people about politics, even though where I
live it puts me sometimes into uncomfortable positions and I'm sure I've lost
customers or other business opportunities due to it.

The people supporting clinton fall into two baskets (sorry, couldn't resist).

#1 are people who have reasons (sometimes good, sometimes bad) for supporting
clinton. I can have very productive conversations with these people, and,
intellectually honest ones.

#2 are the people that simply say that any support for trump whatsoever is
tantamount to treason and betrayal (morally/personally or even one time,
someone actually said it should be "illegal"). They rarely have any good
reasons for supporting clinton and when it is, I generally find it to be an
issue where they interpret position as indelible truth. EG: Clinton is better
for LGBT people, if you support Trump, you hate LGBT people. Perhaps LGBT
people, of which I am one, simply have different priorities? What if I believe
trump will do a better job with the economy and I consider that more important
than having legislation protecting who will bake a cake at my wedding? Many
people I used to consider this friends take that position as a moral and
personal treason.

I unfortunately have a lot less friends than a year ago.

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danaliv
I guarantee you no one at Twitter thinks about Scott Adams even half as much
as Scott Adams does.

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wyager
Twitter bans or downgrades people for political reasons all the time. An
example of twitter's pettiness; some time before they banned Breitbart's Milo
for trolling, they removed the "verified" tag from his account. There is no
sensible justification for this except that twitter was trying to hurt his
credibility/give him a hard time. Regardless of what you think of Milo, that's
just silly. Twitter is not at all conservative with (shadow)banning or other
trickery. They'll even suppress trending tags that they don't agree with
politically.

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danaliv
Twitter doesn't suppress trends and there's no way in heck they'd go to the
trouble to auto-detect when Scott Adams mentions Donald Trump in a Periscope
feed. That would require actual engineering effort (aside from being
completely insane) which they don't put into stuff like this. When they want
to deal with jerkoffs like Milo, the Trust & Safety team handles it, not their
engineers.

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rafi-bz
They ABSOLUTELY suppressed #HillarysHealth

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brian-armstrong
Even if this were true (he has no proof and the more likely explanation is a
glitch), his thesis about this being treason is incorrect. Twitter is not
required to host any content they don't like or want. Adams can still bring
his message to other mediums.

Also, this post segues from conspiracy theory to political bolstering. It's
likely he's using clickbait here to prop up his favored candidate.

~~~
unfathomable
It is treason because they are adamantly attacking Trump supporters because
they are Trump supporters.

~~~
vorotato
I'm pretty sure ChickFila established that corporations have just as much
right to free speech as we do. This includes and is not limited to choosing
what content they would like to share.

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Domenic_S
If that's what twitter wants to do, they need to be truthful about it, and
perhaps update their mission statement:

    
    
      Our mission: To give everyone the power to create and share ideas and information instantly, without barriers.
    

\- [https://about.twitter.com/company](https://about.twitter.com/company)

Let me be clear: if they want to push a political agenda, then they have
(afaik) every right to. But they should _not_ pretend they're some (ahem) Fair
and Balanced firehose of everyone's thoughts and ideas.

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beardicus
Shockingly, the original blog post's title is much less sensational and
certain than the submitted title. Mods, please update.

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dragonwriter
A publisher choosing what content they want to publish and/or promote isn't
"moral treason", it's the essence of free press.

If Adams is unhappy with Twitter, he is free to publish and promote his
content via other means. Twitter not choosing to cooperate with him might be a
contract issue between him and Twitter, but it's not an issue of Adams's
liberty, which does not extend to directing Twitter's use of Twitter's
resources.

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Domenic_S
Oh look, this argument again. Adams _does_ publish and promote his content via
other means.

But Twitter took on this responsibility themselves. Here's their self-stated
mission:

    
    
      Our mission: To give everyone the power to create and share ideas and information instantly, without barriers.
    

\- [https://about.twitter.com/company](https://about.twitter.com/company)

Recently their mission is more like, "To give everyone the power to create and
share ideas that we agree with and information that furthers our personal
beliefs instantly, without barriers."

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464192002d7fe1c
Its a slight variation since Adams was careful to not use the word free
speech, so they can't use that particular tact (twitter is private, you don't
have any right to free speech, read the constitution somtime!).

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Domenic_S
Yep, they have every right afaik to push the conversation whichever way they
please, but it's beyond sleazy to pretend they're totally hands-off.

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geoah
Why is this thread flagged?

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flukus
Because it goes against the narrative SJW's want to paint. Anything with the
slightest connection to being pro Trump will get flagged.

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vorotato
We wish Scott Adams.

