Twitter Is a Media Hack’s Best Friend
We are all by now aware that the social media giants and their other friends in Big Tech lean hard left. It’s also no secret that they are more than willing to aid and abet the Democrats in any way possible. One of the best ways to help the Democrats is to allow their flying monkeys in the mainstream media spread their Biden advocacy disinformation unchecked.
Those who have been reading my stuff or following me on social media for any length of time know that being an opinionated, bomb-throwing critic of the biased American political media is kind of my thing. In fact, media bias is what made me begin writing about politics lo those many years ago.
One of my favorite things to do on Twitter is point out the absurd bias of “journalists” and give them grief about it.
Twitter seems to have taken umbrage with that in the form of a shadowban.
Here is a brief explanation of the infamous Twitter shadowban for those who are unfamiliar. Twitter will throttle some or all of the tweets of those it deems unfriendly. To the person who is tweeting, it seems like nothing is going on. The tweets, however, are not getting into the feeds of those following the person being shadowbanned. It accomplishes the same thing as banning a user, but without making it seem like Twitter is being heavy-handed.
For the longest time I didn’t believe that shadowbanning was happening as frequently as most of my conservative friends thought it was. I’m pretty sure that I was right. As we’ve gotten closer to this election, however, Twitter and Facebook have shown that they’re willing to throttle any content that isn’t Democrat-friendly.
A couple of weeks ago I began noticing that certain tweets of mine were getting absolutely no reaction whatsoever. Now, I’m not a guy who gets a ton of engagement on Twitter. The people who follow me are largely voyeuristic, content with watching the hot mess that is my Twitter life. Still, I do get engagement, especially for certain kinds of tweets. People tend to enjoy it when I go after CNN’s Brian Stelter and call him “Poppin’ Fresh,” for example.
I usually tweet at Stelter, Jake Tapper, and the other hacks, rather than just retweeting and leaving their “@” handles out. What I noticed was that when I included the handle of any mainstream media account I was suddenly getting no response. The first couple of times I passed it off as just an anomaly, but then it happened a couple of more times.
Then I checked it out with people who I know follow me a lot. This tweet red-flagged it for me:
@brianstelter Careful, Poppin' Fresh, you're gonna get a hernia carrying that much water for Grandpa Gropes. https://t.co/D3jEnO83NF
— SFK (@stephenkruiser) October 26, 2020
Not the most brilliant tweet I’ve ever fired off, but still the red meat kind of thing that usually gets a reaction. It didn’t get any likes or retweets for over ten hours. I finally posted it in the Morning Briefing and told everyone that it was shadowbanned and then it finally got a little attention.
The lack of response to that during the busiest part of the day prompted me to see if I was actually being shadowbanned. I checked with several friends who I know pay attention to my Twitter feed and all confirmed that they hadn’t seen that or any of the other tweets that I suspected had been banned. One said she hadn’t been seeing much of my stuff at all lately. I don’t think there is a general ban on me though, I just happen to go for long periods without tweeting.
It’s more than interesting that Twitter is only targeting my tweets to MSM accounts. The media has apparently become a protected species there now too, just like Joe Biden.
The increasing heavy-handedness of Twitter and Facebook has drawn the attention of the Senate Commerce Committee. Twitter’s Jack Dorsey, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, and Google’s Sundar Pichai were all questioned by the committee on Wednesday. The Republicans wanted answers, the Democrats wanted more thought policing.
I’m sure Dorsey and Co. will have no problem giving the Dems what they want.
Whether I like it or not, I still need to use Twitter and Facebook for a variety of work-related things, so I can’t just say, “Screw you, Jack,” and leave. My workaround for the shadowbanned stuff will be to post those tweets in the Morning Briefing under a recurring section.
I just don’t feel right if I go a whole day and don’t drag Poppin’ Fresh at least once. I’m not going to let Jack take that away from me.
Big Tech Needs to Get Its Filthy, Biased Thumbs Off the Scale of This Election
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PJ Media Senior Columnist and Associate Editor Stephen Kruiser is the author of “Don’t Let the Hippies Shower” and “Straight Outta Feelings: Political Zen in the Age of Outrage,” both of which address serious subjects in a humorous way. Monday through Friday he edits PJ Media’s “Morning Briefing.” His columns appear twice a week.
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