In an effort to promote a “healthy public conversation,” Twitter has found itself in yet another controversy as prominent Republicans have accused the social media platform of “shadow banning” them.
Republican National Committee chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, Donald Trump Jr.’s spokesman Andrew Surabian, and several conservative Republican congressmen, including Reps. Devin Nunes, Mark Meadows, Jim Jordan, and Matt Gaetz are less visible on Twitter as their accounts disappeared from the auto-populated drop-down search box. While they when a full search is conducted, their Democratic counterparts did not experience the issue, according to an assessment by Vice News published on Wednesday.
Also impacted were controversial right-wing figures, including Jason Kessler, the organizer for the white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va., last year.
When pressed, Twitter pointed Vice News to look at a blog post from May that described how the platform was cracking down on “troll-like behaviors” in order to promote “healthy conversation.”
Taking to Twitter to complain on Wednesday, McDaniel demanded answers about “[t]he notion that social media companies would suppress certain political points of view.” Adding that every American should be concerned by this, she declared: “Twitter owes the public answers to what’s really going on.”
The notion that social media companies would suppress certain political points of view should concern every American. Twitter owes the public answers to what’s really going on. https://t.co/i9UtbxJrt0
— Ronna McDaniel (@GOPChairwoman) July 25, 2018
“So now @twitter is censoring @GOPChairwoman? Enough is enough with this crap,” Trump Jr., President Trump’s eldest son, tweeted in support of McDaniel. “@Jack it’s time for you to #StopTheBias against conservatives and Trump supporters and fix this once and for all.”
So now @twitter is censoring @GOPChairwoman?
Enough is enough with this crap. @Jack it’s time for you to #StopTheBias against conservatives and Trump supporters and fix this once and for all. https://t.co/JC6i6y01Ek
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) July 25, 2018
He was tweeting at Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, who amid mounting pressure conceded in a tweet that his team has “a lot more work to do to earn people’s trust on how we work” and shared a thread by an employee who offered an explanation about the issue and said a fix was being worked on today.
A short thread addressing some issues folks are encountering as a result of our conversational health work, specifically the perception of “shadowbanning” based on content or ideology. It suffices to say we have a lot more work to do to earn people’s trust on how we work. https://t.co/MN97l7w7RF
— jack (@jack) July 25, 2018
“To be clear, our behavioral ranking doesn’t make judgements based on political views or the substance of tweets,” said Twitter product lead Kayvon Beykpour in a tweet. “Some accounts weren’t being auto-suggested even when people were searching for their specific name. Our usage of the behavior signals within search was causing this to happen & making search results seem inaccurate. We’re making a change today that will improve this.”
Twitter has described what has been going on as an algorithmic glitch, as reported by Fox News, or in the specific case of Rep. Matt Gaetz, an “error,” according to Breitbart News.
As of press time, it appeared that the autocomplete function was showing the missing Republican figures.
Twitter has been accused of bias against conservative voices in the past. In February, conservative Twitter users claimed they lost thousands of their followers in an overnight “purge.” However, at the time, a Twitter spokesperson said the company’s tools were “apolitical”, and it enforces its rules “without political bias.” These controversies, and those impacting Facebook, have prompted GOP lawmakers to press in recent hearings about censorship against conservatives.
Twitter has also cracked done on bots as part of a crackdown effort to prevent future instances of foreign meddling after Russia interfered in the 2016 election.
Special counsel Robert Mueller indicted 13 Russians and three Russian companies in February for meddling in the 2016 election, relying heavily on social media use.
