Babylon Bee fires back at Twitter

From the satirical Babylon Bee:

SAN FRANCISCO, CA—Responding to growing criticism resulting from a rash of recent account suspensions carried out for seemingly innocuous offenses, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey stressed Wednesday that “Twitter is and will always be a platform for ANY and ALL ideas I wholeheartedly agree with.”

“Let me be very clear: I am a far-left progressive, in a company full of far-left progressives, in a city full of far-left progressives, in an industry full of far-left progressives. But Twitter is not just for people like me who dwell in liberal cocoons—no, Twitter is also a place for ANYBODY else who shares my opinions exactly,” the billionaire tweeted.

“Please know that at Twitter we’re committed to increasing the collective health, openness, and civility of public conversation, by banning everyone who disagrees with our progressive religion,” he said, confirming the joy he gets out of “disappearing” users who do not buy in completely to his worldview.

“We thank you for continuing to use our product, letting us monetize you while we proceed to steer culture ever leftward,” he added in a follow-up tweet. “Now retweet this or you will be permanently banned from Twitter.”

Twitter suspended a satire account for posting... satire.

Ashley StClair tweeted,

BREAKING: Twitter has suspended The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) for violating their terms against "manipulation of information"

Twitter suspended a satire account for posting... satire.

Mindy Robinson tweeted,

Twitter just suspended multiple conservative accounts including the Babylon Bee, NPC Daily, Liberal Larry, Excellence Worldwide, and Based Lindsay...all parody accounts that poke innocent fun at the Left.

They are not going to quit until they silence us all.

8 minutes later Jormbo reported that The Babylon Bee has apparently been unbanned.

Cruz urges criminal investigation into Twitter

In Neon Nettle, Jay Greenberg reports in part that U.S. Senator Ted Cruz

has called on the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Treasury Department to investigate Twitter over allegations the company breached U.S. sanctions against Iran. On Friday, Cruz wrote a letter to the Departments urging a criminal investigation into the social media giant for potential criminal activity related to the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. According to Cruz, Twitter may have committed sanctionable actions prohibited by Executive Order 13876. Cruz wrote to Attorney General William Barr and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin regarding the allegations. The letter states that Cruz informed Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey early this year that:“Twitter and its principals face criminal liability and sanctions exposure for providing social media accounts to Iranian persons designated as Specially Designated Nationals (SDNs) by the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) pursuant to E.O. 13876.”

READ MORE: https://neonnettle.com/news/11478-ted-cruz-calls-on-doj-to-investigate-twitter-for-breaching-iran-sanctions
© Neon Nettle

What Twitter did not disclose

In Breitbart, Aaron Klein reports in part,

Twitter for the first time put a fact-check label on tweets from President Trump, using the controversial tactic on messages in which the president complained there is “no way” that “mail-in ballots will be anything less than substantially fraudulent.”

It may be instructive that Twitter seized on the mail-in balloting tweets as the first issue from Trump’s rapid fire social media feed to slap with a fact-check label. Twitter did not disclose in its so-called fact-check it is partners with two groups financed by leftist donors that engage in voter participation efforts, including drives pushing mail-in balloting.

Twitter sits on the “Premier Partner” list of one of those groups alongside ViacomCBS, the merger of Viacom and CBS. Twitter’s so-called fact-check about Trump’s mail-in balloting cited CBS political reporter Grace Segers vouching for mail-in voting.

Read more here.

Unmasking the extremely biased Twitter rules-maker

In Neon Nettle, Jay Greenberg brings us information about the extremely biased person at Twitter who is responsible for "developing and enforcing Twitter's rules." He also goes on to discuss the dangers of mail-in ballots here.

"Artificial engagement"

Andrew Blake reports in the Washington Times,

Twitter on Friday began suspending dozens of accounts for posting content supportive of Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg in violation of the company’s policies.

Seventy accounts were being suspended, either temporarily or permanently, after Twitter determined they broke its rules against artificially amplifying content, the company confirmed.

“We have taken enforcement action on a group of accounts for violating our rules against platform manipulation and spam,” a Twitter spokesperson told The Washington Times.

The Los Angeles Times first reported about Twitter suspending the accounts Friday evening, two days after The Wall Street Journal revealed that Mr. Bloomberg’s presidential campaign had begun hiring hundreds of “deputy field organizers” to promote his candidacy on social media services for $2,500 per month.

Tweets found by The L.A. Times and presented to Twitter showed multiple accounts posting identical messages supportive of Mr. Bloomberg, the former three-term mayor of New York City.

Twitter said it subsequently determined the accounts violated its “Platform Manipulation and Spam Policy,” which prohibits conduct including “coordinating with or compensating others to engage in artificial engagement or amplification.”

Some of the pro-Bloomberg accounts would be permanently suspended, while others would be allowed to remain on the platform provided their owners verify their identities, Twitter added.

“We ask that all of our deputy field organizers identify themselves as working on behalf of the Mike Bloomberg 2020 campaign on their social media accounts,” Bloomberg campaign spokesperson Sabrina Singh said in a statement, The Times reported.

“Through Outvote [a voter-engagement app], content is shared by staffers and volunteers to their network of friends and family and was not intended to mislead anyone,” she added.

Mr. Bloomberg, a billionaire who launched his presidential bid in November, has previously faced scrutiny as a result of his campaign tactics, including specifically his unprecedented spending on political advertisements. His campaign has spent roughly $452 million on advertising during the last four months, ad-tracking firm Advertising Analytics assessed this week, including $401 million on television and radio ads, NPR reported Friday.

Twitter is hardly the only social media service where the Bloomberg campaign is investing heavily, meanwhile. Mr. Bloomberg’s presidential campaign has spent more than $49.5 million on Facebook ads since mounting his bid, including $8.4 million in the last week alone, according to the social network’s statistics.

About time!

About time. Plenty of pro-Hamas people on TV and twitter who’d do their propaganda for them. https://t.co/IaH5WeOaht

— David Reaboi (@davereaboi) November 3, 2019

Good for Twitter and Jack Dorsey!

Mikael Thalen reports in the Daily Dot,

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey announced a ban on Wednesday of all political advertising on the social media platform.

In a lengthy Twitter thread, Dorsey outlined his company’s decision and argued that a political message’s reach “should be earned, not bought.”

“A political message earns reach when people decide to follow an account or retweet,” Dorsey said. “Paying for reach removes that decision, forcing highly optimized and targeted political messages on people. We believe this decision should not be compromised by money.”

...“Internet political ads present entirely new challenges to civic discourse: machine learning-based optimization of messaging and micro-targeting, unchecked misleading information, and deep fakes,” Dorsey said. “All at increasing velocity, sophistication, and overwhelming scale.”

...“Internet political ads present entirely new challenges to civic discourse: machine learning-based optimization of messaging and micro-targeting, unchecked misleading information, and deep fakes,” Dorsey said. “All at increasing velocity, sophistication, and overwhelming scale.”

...The statement appears to be in reference to fellow tech giant Facebook, which has stated that it will allow political advertisements even if they include false information.

“We considered stopping only candidate ads, but issue ads present a way to circumvent,” Dorsey continued. “Additionally, it isn’t fair for everyone but candidates to buy ads for issues they want to push. So we’re stopping these too.”

Dorsey further called for regulators to create a framework for online political advertising to help “ensure a level playing field.”

...Twitter plans to reveal its final policy and begin enforcement in mid-November. Dorsey noted that some exemptions would exist, such as ads surrounding voter registration.

Read more here.

Twitter suspends the accounts of Latinos for Trump. Gives no explanation.

After Trump's rally in New Mexico, Twitter has suspended the accounts of the leadership of Latinos for Trump. Laura Loomer has the story here.

Twitter allows Leftist domestic terrorists to stay on its platform!

Antifa domestic terrorists have put up posters all around DC listing the home addresses of Tucker Carlson and Trump aide Stephen Miller. Twitter blocked the addresses, but is allowing the terrorists to stay on its platform! Ian Miles Cheng reports in Human Events,

The Fox News host wasn’t the only figure whose home address was written on the posters. All Out DC also doxed U.S. government official Stephen Miller.



...The posters feature Carlson’s face blocked out by the AntiFa three-arrow symbol, his home address, the words “Block the Alt-Right,” and a description of Carlson as an “Influencer,” which reads:

Racist with a huge following and platform, uses it to promote racist dogwhistles.

...The loosely organized political movement is made up of anarchists and self-proclaimed communists who rally against President Donald Trump, a man whom they falsely accuse of promoting white supremacy.

Best known setting fires and rioting on campus grounds at U.C. Berkeley and vandalizing store fronts, proponents of the movement are self-described “social justice warriors” whom the Department of Homeland Security and other security agencies have designated their actions as “domestic terrorist violence.”

Three members of AntiFa were charged with aggravated assault, ethnic intimidation, and conspiracy, over the attacks of two U.S. Marine reservists. A mob of “10 to 12 people” attacked the two Mexican-American men in Philadelphia, whom they mistakenly identified as members of a right-wing group called the Proud Boys.

Read more here.

Twitter bans Babalu Blog website. "Twitter amplifies voices of oppression and brutality in Cuba"

One of the sites I regularly visit is Babalu. Today when I went there I read:

Today marks ten days since Twitter, without warning or explanation, arbitrarily banned any links to Babalú Blog on its platform. On May 8th, Twitter began rejecting tweets containing a link to Babalú and continues doing so to this moment.

...We have made repeated attempts to have Twitter remove the ban on Babalú but have yet to receive any response. We have made reports to Twitter Support, but the only thing we have received in return is an automated email saying they would look into it. They have provided no explanation or reason for the ban and have not offered any assistance on how to address or fix this issue.

It feels like they are simply ignoring us, perhaps in the hope we will get tired and go away. Apparently, they have never dealt with Cuban Americans.

Babalú Blog has been reporting news on Cuba and providing commentary for 16 years. Over a decade and a half we have written and reported on the struggle against tyranny in Cuba, the human rights atrocities committed by the Castro regime, the courageous acts by the island’s dissidents, and U.S-Cuba policy.

We have become a thorn in the side for not only for the socialist Castro dictatorship, but also for the criminal regime’s supporters, defenders, and enablers all over the world.

Babalu Blog is also a secure site and due to the constant cyber attacks launched against it over the years by the Cuban dictatorship, it is also well protected. The site has the top rating of “Minimal Risk” by McAfee’s TrustedSource.org:

...In the meantime, while Babalú is blocked from reporting any news on Cuba, the Cuban dictatorship is still able to post links to their propaganda sites such as Granma and Juventud Rebelde. Twitter seems more than happy to oblige them and provide a platform to disseminate their lies.

Babalú articles reporting on the brutal oppression of Cuba’s LGBT community or Ladies in White are blocked on Twitter, but the Castro regime’s state-run newspaper is allowed to post

...We cannot say for certain this is not the fault of Twitter’s overzealous algorithms, but considering the platform’s dubious history, neither can we say for certain it is not a concerted effort by them to silence a dissident voice. Twitter refuses to respond and will not offer an explanation, so one can only look at their past decisions and speculate.

One thing we do know for certain is that Twitter is silencing the voices of dissent on the island while amplifying the voices of oppression and brutality in Cuba.

Read more here.

Tim Pool confronting Twitter executives

Did you know that 75% of Twitter users live outside the United States? Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Vijaya Gadde, head of public policy, answer questions from Tim Pool and Joe Rogan in this YouTube video from March 5. Okay, so Twitter is global. Tim Pool tells them that his concern is the American Republic, where freedom of speech is the First Amendment of our Constitution! Iran, China, Russia, and others are trying to meddle in our elections and they are effective in using Twitter's platform to accomplish their goals. Tim to Dorsey and Gadde: "You have different rules than America has (hate speech that does not explicitly call for violence is protected by the First Amendment). If you refuse to allow Americans free speech you have become too powerful in America and you need to be regulated!"

I was impressed by Tim Pool's questions and confrontations with Dorsey and Gadde. Add one more subscriber to Tim!

What Twitter exposed about "journalists"

CNN's Brian Stelter wonders if journalists should quit using Twitter. "I used to think the transparency of Twitter helped improve trust in media."

Then, Ace of Spades weighs in:

As Mollie Hemingway has said several times, Twitter did improve transparency, and that transparency in turn reduced trust in media.

You showed yourselves for what you really are. We noticed. We adjusted our estimates of you according to the new information.

The thing is, what twitter exposed was not that you were leftwing. We already new that.

What twitter exposed was that you were also dumb, easily duped, eager to believe self-justifying conspiracy theories, thin-skinned, arrogant, incompetent, disgracefully lazy, psychologically (and almost certainly physically) inadequate, dunderheadedly unimaginative and unwilling to consider any idea not within the braindead leftwing Incela Corridor Conventional Wisdom Bubble, prone to the most cowardly go-along-to-get-along sort of groupthink, and weak.

Read more here.

Control content? Who, us?

At The Conservative Treehouse, Sundance writes,

These “executives” are nuts; simply bananas. For some reason, the corporate management and ownership of Twitter (CEO Jack Dorsey) and Facebook (COO Sheryl Sandberg) refuse to admit that people, employees of their companies, actually make the content decisions.

To defend the platform from critics who point out the ideological filtration, both Dorsey and Sandberg present a bizarro proposition that some created omnipotent, nebulous and invisible force has the decision-making power to determine content; and does so without consideration of view. It’s just plain weird. But that’s their story and they’re sticking to it.

Read more here.

Why waste time on a platform that artificially limits a conservative’s ability to take part in the political conversation?

In The Federalist, Nick Short and David Reaboi write,

Conservatives love using Twitter, but their patience in dealing with the throttling of their content’s visibility through Quality Filter “shadowbans” is wearing thin — and fast. Why waste time on a platform that artificially limits a conservative’s ability to take part in the political conversation?

Read more here.

Trump questioning Sessions through Twitter

Judson Berger reports at Fox News about Trump's impatience with the FISA investigation. Trump tweeted this morning,

Why is A.G. Jeff Sessions asking the Inspector General to investigate potentially massive FISA abuse. Will take forever, has no prosecutorial power and already late with reports on Comey etc. Isn’t the I.G. an Obama guy? Why not use Justice Department lawyers? DISGRACEFUL!

Read more here, including the responses from Sessions and Gowdy.

Sean Hannity's Twitter account vanishes

Cassandra Fairbanks reports at Gateway Pundit,

The Twitter account belonging to Fox News host Sean Hannity vanished on Friday evening after an intense episode of his show focusing on corruption in the Department of Justice and the FBI — and a very strange tweet.

The final tweet before his account disappeared read, “Form Submission 1649.”

Read more here.

Bring shadow banning out of the shadows!

How Twitter exercises power

At Ace of Spades, Oregon Muse tells us:

According to Twitter, this video contains content that is 'inflammatory' and 'negative', so they suspended it:

Go here to see what Twitter finds okay.

Free speech on Twitter? No!

At PJ Media, Megan Fox brings us the story of Twitter banning a mom who angrily tweeted against Teen Vogue editor Phillip Picardi for okaying a guide to anal sex for teenage girls.