Twitter’s shadow bans are why the public turned against ‘experts’

They say the coverup is worse than the crime. In this case, they’re both pretty bad. The latest release of internal Twitter files shows that users who opposed COVID lockdowns, made fun of liberal TikTok videos, or just happened to be conservative were secretly restricted. They weren’t allowed to trend, and their tweets would barely be seen by others.

Twitter officials swore up and down, for years, that such “shadow banning” did not occur. “People are asking us if we shadow ban. We don’t,” Twitter’s official account posted in July 2018.

“I think the real question behind the question is, are we doing something according to political ideology or viewpoints? We are not. Period,” Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said in an interview a month later. “We do not look at content with regards to political viewpoint or ideology. We look at behavior.”

Those are lies.

What “behavior” did Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, a professor at Stanford School of Medicine, demonstrate? He was tweeting that COVID lockdowns could be harmful to children. Journalist Bari Weiss revealed Thursday night that, without telling him or anyone else, Twitter labeled Bhattacharya’s account “trends backlist” to make sure he wouldn’t show up on the top-read list no matter how many people agreed with him.

Of course, Dr. Bhattacharya was absolutely right — closed schools set back an entire generation of children in both education and social skills. But a small group of Twitter executives decided you weren’t allowed to have that opinion in 2020-21.

Again and again, Twitter put its finger on the scale based wholly on ideology.

Well, that’s Twitter’s right, liberals will now say, rolling their eyes. Something tells us they’d be singing a different tune if, say, Rachel Maddow was shadow banned, but setting that aside — Twitter lied. Their executives may even have perjured themselves. They kept claiming this “didn’t happen,” and it’s only because Elon Musk spent billions that we know it absolutely did.

The “crisis of disinformation” you go on and on about, wondering why people don’t trust the “experts” anymore? This is why. Our “betters” in tech, media, and government have gaslighted us so often, we can never believe a word they say again.