Yesterday a report came out from Vice News that suggested prominent Republicans were being shadow banned on Twitter when prominent Democrats were not:
Twitter is limiting the visibility of prominent Republicans in search results — a technique known as “shadow banning” — in what it says is a side-effect of its attempts to improve the quality of discourse on the platform.
…
Democrats are not being “shadow banned” in the same way, according to a VICE News review.
You can read the full report here.
This morning Trump responded to that report, putting Twitter on notice:
Twitter “SHADOW BANNING” prominent Republicans. Not good. We will look into this discriminatory and illegal practice at once! Many complaints.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 26, 2018
If Twitter is indeed targeting Republicans with shadow banning and not Democrats, it would certainly be discriminatory. But illegal? I don’t know about that. Perhaps they violate their own stated rules, but don’t think they’d be breaking any actual laws, per se. But I could be wrong. What I do know is Trump likes to throw out the word ‘illegal’ when it doesn’t necessarily apply, so pardon me if I don’t take his word for it.
And I’m also not sure what he means when he says the government will look into this. Is he talking about the DOJ? Or some executive branch bureaucracy or commission? Or is he really just trying to stir people up on Twitter about it? I honestly think that’s more likely, but we’ll see.