Twitter created "blacklists" of certain users who expressed critical opinions - this was revealed in new internal message exchanges made public on Thursday evening about the practice followed during the previous management of the social medium.
the so-called "Twitter documents" - like the previous one - was summarized and edited by a journalist. Bari Weiss wrote that groups of employees were tasked with creating "blacklists" to limit the visibility of certain "unfavorable" posts or exclude them from the popular post category, as well as restrict the readability of entire threads—all without users' knowledge. .
Various labels were applied to the blacklists, as evidenced by the screenshots presented. For example, the page of Stanford University professor Jay Bhattacharya, a doctor who has voiced his opinion that lockdowns during the coronavirus pandemic are harmful to children, was marked with the "Trends Blacklist", which meant that it was not allowed to be among the trending topics. The personal page of the well-known conservative activist Charlie Kirk was labeled "Do Not Amplify" for internal use. There was a well-known public figure who had the "Search Blacklist" tag, which excluded him from the search results.
The first part of the internal correspondence and message exchanges showing the practices adopted by Twitter's former leadership was made public last Friday by journalist Matt Taibi. They were about how the company's employees restricted the release of certain information, including the sharing of a press release about content found on Hunter Biden's laptop in October 2020.
The spokesperson of the White House also commented on the disclosure of the information on Monday. Karinne Jean-Pierre said it was a distraction from the growing hateful and anti-Semitic expressions on Twitter, as she said the whistleblower's information was merely "old news".
Regarding the weight of information published about the operating practices of social media, Dan Schneider, vice president of the Media Research Center, an analytical institute founded in 1986, told the public media that in the United States in recent years, this social media dictated that what should the news media cover. Media players follow what appears on it as a "big story", what can be processed, and thus Twitter dictates the direction of the various reports, said the media expert.
Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk became the owner of the social media at the end of October, where he promised transparency and freedom of speech. Earlier, he justified this by making the documents about the practice during the previous management public.
Source: 888.hu
Featured Image: Facebook
