The following is a transcript of Todd’s morning commentary – heard daily on hundreds of radio stations around the nation. Click here to listen to Todd’s daily podcast.
Hello Americans, I’m Todd Starnes. Stand by for news and commentary next.
For more than a decade Twitter executives told us they were a free speech platform. They dismissed accusations that conservatives — like myself – had been shadow banned — censored.
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Big Tech and Big Media told us we were delusional. They said we wore tin foil hats. Accused of being conspiracy theorists. But it turns out – we were right.
Newly released files show that Twitter was in fact intentionally targeting and blacklisting conservatives — including yours truly.
Journalist Bari Weiss dropped a second round of “Twitter Files” Thursday.
Following last week’s release by new owner Elon Musk through journalist Matt Taibbi that said it revealed Twitter’s collusion with the Biden 2020 presidential campaign, Weiss revealed “that teams of Twitter employees build blacklists, prevent disfavored tweets from trending, and actively limit the visibility of entire accounts or even trending topics—all in secret, without informing users.”
Weiss dropped the second batch of files on Thursday in a lengthy Twitter thread, continuing: “Twitter once had a mission ‘to give everyone the power to create and share ideas and information instantly, without barriers.’ Along the way, barriers nevertheless were erected.”
The thread continued with examples, such as Stanford’s Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, who was placed on a “Trends Blacklist” after arguing that COVID-19 lockdowns would harm children. The blacklist prevented his tweets from trending.
Conservative radio and TV host Dan Bongino was placed on a “Search Blacklist” at one point, while the account of conservative activist Charlie Kirk was set to “Do Not Amplify.”
“Twitter denied that it does such things,” Weiss continued. “In 2018, Twitter’s Vijaya Gadde (then Head of Legal Policy and Trust) and Kayvon Beykpour (Head of Product) said: ‘We do not shadow ban.’ They added: ‘And we certainly don’t shadowban based on political viewpoints or ideology.'”
Newsmax
They skirted by their lie with a bowl of word salad. Instead of shadow banning, Twitter called it “visibility filtering.”
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Every blacklisted or shadowbanned Twitter account needs to be released. @elonmusk @mtaibbi @bariweiss
— toddstarnes (@toddstarnes) December 9, 2022
But it wasn’t just people that Twitter was censoring. They were also banning conversations about controversial issues — like whether vaccines were harmful to children.
Elon Musk – the new owner of Twitter – has promised to right wrongs.
But if you think Twitter hates conservatives — imagine what Google and Facebook have been doing in the shadows.
If you want to understand what’s about to happen in this nation – I would urge you to read my book, “Culture Jihad: How to Stop the Left From Killing a Nation.”