07/26/2018 / By JD Heyes
In recent months you have likely heard about or read stories where conservatives and pro-Trump media outlets are being censored, down-rated or “shadow banned” from the major social media platforms like Facebook, Google, YouTube, and Twitter.
That is certainly happening, and the censorship is far wider than many Americans understand or even know about.
Throughout this, the Left-wing establishment media, most of whom have not seen their referral traffic from the major social media sites diminish much, if at all, have largely dismissed conservative media complaints as baseless conspiracy theories, even though serious studies have proven that the censorship and shadow banning most definitely is occurring.
In fact, a recent study by The Gateway Pundit found that referral traffic from Facebook alone had fallen a staggering 93 percent from Jan. 1, 2017 to May 1, 2018.
Ninety-three percent, thanks to purposeful algorithm changes. “This is a criminal act,” TGP reported. “Facebook took our money for advertising and promised a fair playing field.”
Now even some Left-leaning news organizations are beginning to notice that conservative news sites are indeed being targeted for censorship and shadow banning.
Breitbart News reports that Gizmodo recently published a story noting that Twitter censors “may be demoting controversial accounts in search results.
“In what appears to be new raking behavior, Gizmodo has identified several prominent far-right accounts now buried by Twitter’s search feature,” the tech news site reported. “As an unintended side effect of demoting divisive figures, many of the dropdown results show fake accounts.”
Some prominent conservative voices that have been affected include indy journalist Mike Cernovich; author and YouTube star Stefan Molyneux, Infowars Editor-at-Large Paul Joseph Watson, The Gateway Pundit founder Jim Hoft, and political analyst Laura Loomer.
The algorithm changes by Twitter mean that the aforementioned accounts (and many others) do not show up as suggestions when users are searching for them. Rather, the search function recommends phony impersonation accounts, not the real blue-checked verified users.
Users could only find those accounts after they hit “enter;” they were never recommended in the search bar, though. (Related: Why achieving censorship is important to the centralized media establishment.)
Breitbart News also reported on additional shadow-banned accounts:
Breitbart News also discovered other examples of censored users, which included author and commentator Lauren Southern, OAN correspondent Jack Posobiec, Dilbert creator Scott Adams, lawyer and commentator Will Chamberlain, Gateway Pundit reporters Lucian Wintrich and Cassandra Fairbanks, Daily Caller contributor Scott Greer, Daily Caller reporter Peter J. Hasson, Daily Caller and Rebel Media journalist Rob Shimshock.
Several Breitbart reporters and correspondents were also censored.
But do you know whose accounts weren’t affected at all by the algorithm changes? Never-Trump “conservatives.” They include Daily Wire editor-in-chief Ben Shapiro, National Review’s David French, Resurgent’s Erick Erickson, and The Blaze founder Glenn Beck (though Beck has ‘seen the light’ recently).
.@glennbeck has heard ENOUGH from the mainstream media.
It's time to acknowledge everything @realDonaldTrump has done for America. pic.twitter.com/eZZVH1URcL— TheBlaze (@theblaze) May 18, 2018
There is no way all of this is simply accidental. Algorithms have built-in parameters. They are computer programs; they look for or exclude data based on how they are written and designed. So for the Left-wing social media behemoths to claim there is no conspiracy to silence conservative, pro-Trump voices is absurd.
In The Gateway Pundit’s study, many of the largest conservative pro-Trump sites lost millions of referrals from Facebook during the examined periods of time.
Other smaller pro-Trump sites have suffered the algorithm wrath of Facebook. But all of them are suffering losses of revenue from the dramatic decreases in traffic from the world’s biggest social media platform.
The ongoing censorship, as well as Facebook’s willingness to allow users’ personal data to be mined by political campaigns, likely combined to lead to a massive sell-off of stock on Thursday, with the company shedding one-fifth of its value, or more than $100 billion. That’s the largest one-day loss in market value in the history of Wall Street.
The question now becomes: Will massive loss of wealth lead the company to drop its ban on content that more than half the country finds useful and important?
Read more about social media platform censorship at Censorship.news.
J.D. Heyes is a senior writer for NaturalNews.com and NewsTarget.com, as well as editor of The National Sentinel.
Sources include:
Tagged Under: analysis, Anti-Trump, bias, Censorship, conservatives, discrimination, Facebook, financial loss, Google, Leftists, plunge, President Trump, Pro Trump, proof, propaganda, shadow ban, Social media, stock market, Study, Twitter, YouTube