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'Your actions are criminal': Pre-Elon Musk Twitter slammed as secret blacklist is revealed

'A new #TwitterFiles investigation reveals that teams of Twitter employees build blacklists, prevent disfavored tweets,' claimed Bari Weiss

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA: Independent journalist Bari Weiss on Thursday, December 8 tweeted in a series of tweets regarding how Twitter was blacklisting some of its conservative users and commentators from trending. 

According to New York Post, The journalist stated in its tweet series, "A new #TwitterFiles investigation reveals that teams of Twitter employees build blacklists, prevent disfavored tweets from trending, and actively limit the visibility of entire accounts or even trending topics—all in secret, without informing users." 

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In another tweet, she added, "Twitter once had a mission “to give everyone the power to create and share ideas and information instantly, without barriers.” Along the way, barriers nevertheless were erected. Further, it claimed, "Take, for example, Stanford’s Dr Jay Bhattacharya (@DrJBhattacharya) who argued that Covid lockdowns would harm children. Twitter secretly placed him on a “Trends Blacklist,” which prevented his tweets from trending."

Meanwhile, she also added "Consider the popular right-wing talk show host, Dan Bongino (@dbongino), who at one point was slapped with a “Search Blacklist.” Weiss also noted, "Twitter set the account of conservative activist Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) to “Do Not Amplify.” Weiss also claimed, "Twitter denied that it does such things. In 2018, Twitter's Vijaya Gadde (then Head of Legal Policy and Trust) and Kayvon Beykpour (Head of Product) said, “We do not shadow ban.” They added, “And we certainly don’t shadow ban based on political viewpoints or ideology.” Further, she added, "What many people call “shadow banning,” Twitter executives and employees call “Visibility Filtering” or “VF.” Multiple high-level sources confirmed its meaning."

Weiss claimed, “Think about visibility filtering as being a way for us to suppress what people see to different levels. It’s a very powerful tool,” one senior Twitter employee told us. VF” refers to Twitter’s control over user visibility. It used VF to block searches of individual users; to limit the scope of a particular tweet’s discoverability; to block select users’ posts from ever appearing on the “trending” page; and from inclusion in hashtag searches." The journalist also noted, "All without users’ knowledge."

Meanwhile, in 2018 Jack Dorsey claimed in a tweet, "People are asking us if we shadow ban. We don’t. Read more to get all the facts." In another tweet, he said, “We don’t shadow ban, and we certainly don’t shadow ban based on political viewpoints. We do rank tweets by default to make Twitter more immediately relevant More on ranking signals." The secret group behind the blacklisting also includes the "Head of Legal, Policy, and Trust (Vijaya Gadde), the Global Head of Trust & Safety (Yoel Roth), subsequent CEOs Jack Dorsey and Parag Agrawal, and others,” according to Weiss. 

In another tweet, she also detailed, "In internal Slack messages, Twitter employees spoke of using technicalities to restrict the visibility of tweets and subjects. Here’s Yoel Roth, Twitter’s then Global Head of Trust & Safety, in a direct message to a colleague in early 2021:" She further detailed, " When Raichik told Twitter that her address had been disseminated she says Twitter Support responded with this message: "We reviewed the reported content, and didn't find it to be in violation of the Twitter rules." No action was taken. The doxxing tweet is still up." In another tweet, she also claimed, "One of the accounts that rose to this level of scrutiny was @libsoftiktok—an account that was on the “Trends Blacklist” and was designated as “Do Not Take Action on User Without Consulting With SIP-PES.”

'Elon proved them as liars'

The Internet quickly reacted to the news of blacklisting users. A user said, "Blacklisting users from Trending as reported is significant and further confirms yet another manner which Twitter was clearly censoring Free Speech." Another said, "Theyve been blacklisting people in Hollywood for over half a century. What make you think Twitter would be immune? Not too mention so many other avenues they manipulate." A user wrote, "Twitter. The platform responsible for shadow-banning, blacklisting and suppressing our first amendment right, denying it and using the platform as a political weapon. Your actions are deplorable and criminal. Shame on you. Thanks @elonmusk for exposing the truth."

A tweet read, "Twitter is way more interesting without the shadow banning and blacklisting. Thank you @elonmusk." A user claimed, "We all knew Twitter employees were secretly blacklisting and censoring users — it’s nice for Twitter to finally admit it." A user noted, "Probably because they were spewing conspiracy theories based on no facts" A user wrote, "We knew it! They denied it. Elon proved them as liars and now what will become of it?"

This article contains remarks made on the Internet by individual people and organizations. MEAWW cannot confirm them independently and does not support claims or opinions being made online.