Carol Swain Says Facebook Has Shadow Banned Her Politically Conservative Posts

Carol Swain said Facebook staff members shadow banned her last week and restricted her from communicating her ideas to her more than 77,000 social media followers. Shadow banning occurs when someone posts something and that same person can see what he or she published on a social media network. No other person, however, can see or respond to the post. Swain said she saw her published posts and asked her friends if they also saw what she posted. They did not.

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Commentary: The Social Media Purge Exposes Net Neutrality’s True Goal

For nearly two decades, Silicon Valley made net neutrality its highest policy priority. Under the banner of a “free and open” internet, Google, Facebook, and Twitter sought regulations to ensure the uninterrupted flow of information by treating every bit equally. Or so they said.

Beginning last Friday night, these firms and others executed an unprecedented digital purge of the social media and video accounts of their political rivals. After several years of accelerating suspensions and suppressions, this time YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter permanently banned a number of high-profile conservatives and deplatformed thousands of others, at least temporarily. Many of these accounts had nothing to do with last Wednesday’s heinous events at the Capitol. Yet their histories are erased.

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Commentary: Fighting Democrats’ Dirty Politics

by Karin McQuillan   The midterms are in the rearview mirror and the chattering classes are back to debating fake collusion with Russia and a looming indictment of the president. Before the midterms, Republican voters were told this election was consequential. After the midterms, we’re told it is just one more split-government election, move along. I’m not moving along so easily, and neither is my circle of patriotic MAGA friends. Losing the House of Representatives was a crippling blow on immigration, the cornerstone of the Democrats’ drive to permanent domination. Any hopes of Democrats accepting Trump’s 2016 victory as normal politics is dead, and now they have Congress from which to harry and hobble the president. Democrats have dehumanized Trump and all his supporters as white supremacists, in order to justify violence against our republican foundations. Since inauguration day they have undermined respect for the presidential election, the Supreme Court, the electoral college, freedom of speech and religion and the right to bear arms. Democrats claim these hallowed institutions are bringing on fascism. Danger lights should be going off in every decent person’s mind. We are not in a terrain of politics as usual, but in a new and terrifying…

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Politico: House Committee Considers Subpoena For Twitter CEO For Shadow Banning Conservatives

Jack Dorsey

by Kyle Perisic   A House committee is reportedly considering issuing Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey a subpoena for the social media’s allegations of shadow banning conservatives. An unnamed staffer on the House Energy and Commerce Committee told Politico that it is considering issuing Dorsey a subpoena to testify before the panel after a “tense” meeting with representatives Thursday, Politico reported. After negotiations to convince Dorsey to testify before the committee over its data and content policies, the Republican source told Politico that the social media giant is “delaying” and “stonewalling” the committee. “I appreciate your willingness to speak publicly on issues facing Twitter and agree complex algorithms must be better communicated to consumers. After many good faith efforts from staff, this is your formal invitation to appear before @HouseCommerce on Sept. 5,” Republican Rep. Greg Walden of Oregon, tweeted at Dorsey Thursday. A representative from Twitter, along with representatives from Facebook and Google, met with the House Committee on the Judiciary on July 17 to discuss the allegations of the giant platforms censoring conservatives. During the hearing, Democrats claimed that the major platforms — which control nearly every aspect of social media, internet searches, and internet ads — don’t have a bias against conservatives. “There’s been…

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How Censorship by Facebook Reinforces This Writer’s Point on Liberals’ Intolerance

by Mike Gonzalez   Less than a third of the way into his upcoming book on nationalism, Israeli philosopher and scholar Yoram Hazony warns about the growing censorship constricting debate in Western societies when the opinion in question runs counter to the views of politically correct liberalism. Facebook wasted no time in making his case for him. “There is a sense today throughout the Western world that one’s beliefs on controversial matters should no longer be discussed openly,” Hazony writes in “The Virtue of Nationalism,” to be published by Basic Books in September, adding: We are now aware that we must think a second and third time before acting or speaking. … Genuine diversity in the constitutional or religious character of Western nations persists only at mounting costs to those who insist on their freedom. The observation was prescient, and Hazony is now facing these costs. Facebook has blocked ads for Hazony’s book ostensibly because, as an announcement informed him: “Your ad was not approved because your Page has not been authorized to run ads with political content.” According to Facebook’s own definition, however, political content is support for candidates, legislation, ballot questions, etc. Having spent part of a North Carolina…

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Republican Rep. Gaetz Threatens Twitter with FEC Complaint Over Twitter Suppression, Claims Twitter May Be Giving Opponent Illegal Advantage

Matt Gaetz

by Peter Hasson and Joe Simonson    – Twitter’s recent algorithm change suppressed, or “shadow-banned,” prominent conservatives, including Republican Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, a new report found.  – Gaetz is considering filing a Federal Election Commission (FEC) complaint against Twitter, he told The Daily Caller News Foundation.  – Gaetz said his Twitter account’s growth slowed immediately after Twitter’s recent algorithm change. Twitter acknowledged the “inaccurate” search results but said it was unrelated to politics. Rep. Matt Gaetz is considering filing a complaint with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) over Twitter’s alleged suppression of his account, the Florida Republican told The Daily Caller News Foundation on Wednesday. Gaetz was one of several prominent conservatives, including members of Congress and the chair of the Republican National Committee, whose accounts Twitter suppressed by making it harder to find in the site’s search function, a Vice News investigation published Wednesday found. “Democrats are not being ‘shadow banned’ in the same way,” the report concluded, noting: “Not a single member of the 78-person Progressive Caucus faces the same situation in Twitter’s search.” Twitter announced in May that the company would rely on “behavior-based signals” to boost the visibility of some accounts and to suppress the visibility of others, as…

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Twitter Suspends Conservative Pundit Kathleen McKinley For Opposing Trans In Military, Tying ‘Extreme Muslim Beliefs’ To Honor Killings

Kathleen McKinley

by Peter Hasson   Kathleen McKinley, a conservative blogger and political commentator for a local Fox station in Houston, was surprised Friday to find an email from Twitter announcing her account had been suspended. Twitter listed two tweets that it claimed violated rules against “hateful conduct,” emails that McKinley shared with The Daily Caller News Foundation show. In the first tweet, McKinley stated her opposition to an Obama-era rule allowing transgender troops serving in the military, which she felt the Obama-era “was normalizing a mental disorder (gender dysphoria) (called ‘distress’ now) which has no place in our military. Certainly not our $$ for surgery.” The belief that biological males who believe they’re women shouldn’t be cleared for military service is well within the conservative mainstream. McKinley’s second tweet referred to “extreme Muslim beliefs” — rather than mainstream Muslim beliefs — “that condone honor killings.” That tweet had a specific context: McKinley’s friend Obianuju Ekeocha, an African pro-life activist, was in a Twitter debate about abortion with Bill Prady, a producer on CBS’ “The Big Bang Theory.” At issue was whether pro-lifers should support exemptions for someone who claimed a religious right to abortion. Ekeocha’s answer was no, for the same reason that she…

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