(San Francisco) In the latest undercover Project Veritas video investigation, current and former Twitter employees are on camera explaining steps the social media giant is taking to censor political content that they don’t like.

This video release follows the first undercover Twitter exposé Project Veritas released on January 10th which showed Twitter Senior Network Security Engineer Clay Haynes saying that Twitter is “more than happy to help the Department of Justice with their little [President Donald Trump] investigation.” Twitter responded to the video with a statement shortly after that release, stating “the individual depicted in this video was speaking in a personal capacity and does not represent of speak for Twitter.” The video released by Project Veritas today features eight employees, and a Project Veritas spokesman said there are more videos featuring additional employees coming.

On January 3rd 2018 at a San Francisco restaurant, Abhinov Vadrevu, a former Twitter Software Engineer explains a strategy, called “shadow banning,” that to his knowledge, Twitter has employed:

“One strategy is to shadow ban so you have ultimate control. The idea of a shadow ban is that you ban someone but they don’t know they’ve been banned, because they keep posting and no one sees their content. So they just think that no one is engaging with their content, when in reality, no one is seeing it.”

Twitter is in the process of automating censorship and banning, says Twitter Software Engineer Steven Pierre on December 8th of 2017:

“Every single conversation is going to be rated by a machine and the machine is going to say whether or not it’s a positive thing or a negative thing. And whether it’s positive or negative doesn’t (inaudible), it’s more like if somebody’s being aggressive or not. Right? Somebody’s just cursing at somebody, whatever, whatever. They may have point, but it will just vanish… It’s not going to ban the mindset, it’s going to ban, like, a way of talking.”

Olinda Hassan, a Policy Manager for Twitter’s Trust and Safety team explains on December 15th, 2017 at a Twitter holiday party that the development of a system of “down ranking” “shitty people” is in the works:

“Yeah. That’s something we’re working on. It’s something we’re working on. We’re trying to get the shitty people to not show up. It’s a product thing we’re working on right now.”

Former Twitter Engineer Conrado Miranda confirms on December 1st, 2017 that tools are already in place to censor pro-Trump or conservative content on the platform. When asked whether or not these capabilities exist, Miranda says, “that’s a thing.”

In a conversation with former Twitter Content Review Agent Mo Norai on May 16th, 2017, we learned that in the past Twitter would manually ban or censor Pro-Trump or conservative content. When asked about the process of banning accounts, Norai said, “On stuff like that it was more discretion on your view point, I guess how you felt about a particular matter…”

When asked to clarify if that process was automated Norai confirmed that it was not:

“Yeah, if they said this is: ‘Pro-Trump’ I don’t want it because it offends me, this, that. And I say I banned this whole thing, and it goes over here and they are like, ‘Oh you know what? I don’t like it too. You know what? Mo’s right, let’s go, let’s carry on, what’s next?'”
Norai also revealed that more left-leaning content would go through their selection process with less political scrutiny, “It would come through checked and then I would be like ‘Oh you know what? This is okay. Let it go.’”

Norai explains that this selection process wasn’t exactly Twitter policy, but rather they were following unwritten rules from the top:

“A lot of unwritten rules, and being that we’re in San Francisco, we’re in California, very liberal, a very blue state. You had to be… I mean as a company you can’t really say it because it would make you look bad, but behind closed doors are lots of rules.”

“There was, I would say… Twitter was probably about 90% Anti-Trump, maybe 99% Anti-Trump.”
At a San Francisco bar on January 5th, Pranay Singh details how the shadow-banning algorithms targeting right-leaning are engineered:

“Yeah you look for Trump, or America, and you have like five thousand keywords to describe a redneck. Then you look and parse all the messages, all the pictures, and then you look for stuff that matches that stuff.”

When asked if the majority of the algorithms are targeted against conservative or liberal users of Twitter, Singh said, “I would say majority of it are for Republicans.”

Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe believes the power over speech Silicon Valley tech giants has is unprecedented and dangerous:

“What kind of world do we live in where computer engineers are the gatekeepers of the ‘way people talk?’ This investigation brings forth information of profound public importance that educates people about how free they really are to express their views online.”

Project Veritas plans to release more undercover video from within Twitter in the coming days.

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At least PV didn't hype the shit out of next to nothing, which they seem to make a habit of.

Is there an assumption that twitter has to be fair? It's a private enterprise developed in California, of course it's going to be progressive hogwash.

.

quote:

Originally posted by Voshterkoff:
Is there an assumption that twitter has to be fair? It's a private enterprise developed in California, of course it's going to be progressive hogwash.

There's an assumption that they ought to be open and honest about what they're doing and how they present themselves. If they came right out and said "this is who we are and what we do" and deal with the consequences of honesty, that's one thing. If they say "oh no, we don't censor anyone or try to suppress any viewpoint" and they actually do, then that - while not necessarily illegal - is certainly unethical.

quote:

Originally posted by Voshterkoff:
Is there an assumption that twitter has to be fair? It's a private enterprise developed in California, of course it's going to be progressive hogwash.

It is like the phone company in the old days, a private company but a utility offering service to anyone who wants to pay for it, etc.

What if the phone company had put phones in each home or business but the phone wouldn't ring when you called certain places it disapproved of. Ford dealers, honky tonks, laundries run by Chinese, businesses that were paying extra to the phone co manager for protection, etc.

quote:

Originally posted by bobtheelf:

quote:

Originally posted by Voshterkoff:
Is there an assumption that twitter has to be fair? It's a private enterprise developed in California, of course it's going to be progressive hogwash.

There's an assumption that they ought to be open and honest about what they're doing and how they present themselves. If they came right out and said "this is who we are and what we do" and deal with the consequences of honesty, that's one thing. If they say "oh no, we don't censor anyone or try to suppress any viewpoint" and they actually do, then that - while not necessarily illegal - is certainly unethical.

What about car dealers, to name but one?

quote:

Originally posted by Grayguns:
.

Can we quote you on that?

As for Twatter, the only reason I've ever used it was to troll the shit out of liberals.

My best was a response was in a twitter item to Obama saying "ISIS is not Islamic." My response was "ISLAMIC STATE not Islamic? Dafuq?"

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:
At least PV didn't hype the shit out of next to nothing, which they seem to make a habit of.

No kidding. I like his work, and I believe he truly believews in what he is doing...but he has been acting a little like a snake-oil salesman or a charlatan of late...

quote:

Originally posted by bcereuss:

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:
At least PV didn't hype the shit out of next to nothing, which they seem to make a habit of.

No kidding. I like his work, and I believe he truly believews in what he is doing...but he has been acting a little like a snake-oil salesman or a charlatan of late...

They probably noticed internet commentary about them being more show than go lately. We can't have been the only ones to say something. Back to quietly dropping bombs like these is far more effective.

quote:

Originally posted by Grayguns:
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--. . - / ... --- -- . / -.. .- -- -. / --. .-. . .- ... .

So how will you guys feel if "online fairness" is extended to this forum?

^^^^ The issue isn't online fairness. There doesn't need to be any such thing. Twitter can have any rules it wants, including approving liberal points of view, and refusing to publish conservative points of view, just the way the NYT can refuse to publish a conservative article or letter you submit, or MSNBC can refuse to report fairly on conservative issues.

What Twitter should NOT do, is without notice to its patrons, edit or censor their posts, or pretend that it posts their twits when it in fact does not.

It holds itself out to the public as a platform for anyone to join, to give rein to their free expression, and it has certain published content rules; rules for example that got Milo Y banned. Because it holds itself out to everyone and publishes some rules, it should not have a second set of "double secret probation" rules for content that it doesn't like, while pretending to offer an open platform.

That is arguably an "unfair and deceptive business practice". You are accepting their offer of an open platform which brings benefits to both parties; you get publicity, and they get to direct advertising to your followers and to you. That becomes an unfair exchange when they pretend to offer you the platform, but do not actually do so.

To return to this forum, this is a private, non-commercial discussion forum. There is no agreed upon terms of exchange, and the Terms of Service do not set forth any rules concerning posting. When a post that the ownership of the Forum feels is off base is made, the ownership may edit it, remove it, comment on it, admonish the user, suspend the user or ban the user, all at ownership's sole discretion, because membership here is a voluntary gratuity offered by the ownership, not a commercial exchange of consideration.

The law is NOT well settled in this area, but conduct like this reported by PV and engaged in by large tech platforms like Twitter and Facebook will result in federal legislation that the large techs will not like. When you start acting like a public utility, and are effectively a monopoly that is generating revenue from the public, you can expect regulation if you don't abide by consistent, published rules or play things straight down the middle.

What is commercial about Twitter? Is there any charge?

quote:

Originally posted by JALLEN:

quote:

Originally posted by Voshterkoff:
Is there an assumption that twitter has to be fair? It's a private enterprise developed in California, of course it's going to be progressive hogwash.

It is like the phone company in the old days, a private company but a utility offering service to anyone who wants to pay for it, etc.

What if the phone company had put phones in each home or business but the phone wouldn't ring when you called certain places it disapproved of. Ford dealers, honky tonks, laundries run by Chinese, businesses that were paying extra to the phone co manager for protection, etc.

Twitter is not a utility, not even remotely so. It is a free service that can be denied to users at will. They own the product and can dictate the nature of the service.
The only right a user has is the right to stop using the service.

Is there any evidence of the type of “filtering” that is suggested in the article? All the see in that article is hearsay from a former employee.

quote:

Originally posted by JALLEN:
What is commercial about Twitter? Is there any charge?

They make most of their money from advertising: https://www.investopedia.com/a...-twtr-make-money.asp

quote:

Originally posted by LoungeChair:

quote:

Originally posted by JALLEN:

quote:

Originally posted by Voshterkoff:
Is there an assumption that twitter has to be fair? It's a private enterprise developed in California, of course it's going to be progressive hogwash.

It is like the phone company in the old days, a private company but a utility offering service to anyone who wants to pay for it, etc.

What if the phone company had put phones in each home or business but the phone wouldn't ring when you called certain places it disapproved of. Ford dealers, honky tonks, laundries run by Chinese, businesses that were paying extra to the phone co manager for protection, etc.

Twitter is not a utility, not even remotely so. It is a free service that can be denied to users at will. They own the product and can dictate the nature of the service.
The only right a user has is the right to stop using the service.

Is there any evidence of the type of “filtering” that is suggested in the article? All the see in that article is hearsay from a former employee.

So it is like the Forum, with several hundred million participants.

quote:

Originally posted by tatortodd:

quote:

Originally posted by Grayguns:
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--. . - / ... --- -- . / -.. .- -- -. / --. .-. . .- ... .

Get some damn grease
???
Ok then.

quote:

Originally posted by JALLEN:

quote:

Originally posted by Voshterkoff:
Is there an assumption that twitter has to be fair? It's a private enterprise developed in California, of course it's going to be progressive hogwash.

It is like the phone company in the old days, a private company but a utility offering service to anyone who wants to pay for it, etc.

What if the phone company had put phones in each home or business but the phone wouldn't ring when you called certain places it disapproved of. Ford dealers, honky tonks, laundries run by Chinese, businesses that were paying extra to the phone co manager for protection, etc.

But in your example, the phone company in the good ole days pretty much held a monopoly on how people communicated, unless you wanted to mail a letter, and we 'paid' for that ability to communicate. Twitter is free, and there are what seem to be an never ending flow of programs to communicate with each other in cyberspace. In the good ole days you all but had to have a phone. However, no one 'has to have' Twitter or Facebook.

quote:

Originally posted by JALLEN:

quote:

Originally posted by bobtheelf:

quote:

Originally posted by Voshterkoff:
Is there an assumption that twitter has to be fair? It's a private enterprise developed in California, of course it's going to be progressive hogwash.

There's an assumption that they ought to be open and honest about what they're doing and how they present themselves. If they came right out and said "this is who we are and what we do" and deal with the consequences of honesty, that's one thing. If they say "oh no, we don't censor anyone or try to suppress any viewpoint" and they actually do, then that - while not necessarily illegal - is certainly unethical.

What about car dealers, to name but one?

I would not consider most car dealerships ethical either.