Here is a more complete discussion of Prager's charges of censorship, and in my opinion they are laughable: https://reason.com/2019/07/18/dennis-prager-who-boasts-1-bil...
Who would have thought that another conservative story about censorship would turn out to be bullshit.
It’s not like the people parroting them have the impetuous to check though, it’s much easier and more comfortable to drone on about “YouTube blocking a video about the 10 commandments” over and over until it becomes your reality, where you’re persecuted.
https://www.niemanlab.org/2020/10/two-new-studies-show-again...
> What we see for prominent conservatives, however, feels very unfair to me
I find this extremely ironic given that the slogan "facts don't care about your feelings" is attributed to conservatives in particular
I don't follow anyone on facebook or twitter I can't vouch for those, maybe it's just youtube who does all the censoring.
Joe Rogan, Sargon of Akkad, Viva Frey, Academic Agent, Thunderf00t, 1791
Are you talking about the two in this article, or alluding to more?
The studies:
1) https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/26/censorship-conserva...
"The findings demonstrate how a small number of conservative users routinely outpace their liberal rivals and traditional news outlets in driving the online conversation — amplifying their impact a little more than a week before Election Day. They contradict the prevailing political rhetoric from some Republican lawmakers that conservative voices are censored online — indicating that instead, right-leaning talking points continue to shape the worldviews of millions of U.S. voters."
2) https://www.mediamatters.org/facebook/new-study-finds-facebo...
"right-leaning pages consistently earned more average weekly interactions than either left-leaning or ideologically nonaligned pages"
This doesn't seem to me to support that "Facebook and twitter do not censor conservatives";
The assumption seems to be that if conservatives are ultimately more influential, they mustn't have been censored. I'm also not sure how fine-grained the distinction of right/left leaning is.
If all conservatives voices are censored except for a few far-right/extremist voices that are amplified, does this balance out? Add a few more dimensions and you might come up with a different conclusion.
In any case, I'll need to see more before I agree it's "well established".
The tweets that they quote are simply innocuous. The ban isn't justified based on the tweets, and was either a panicked response to the news with no investigation or a very thinly veiled political move. I think the right wing has reason to claim bias from that one. What is the closest parallel with that involving a left wing figure?
[0] https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2020/suspensio...
I've posted this before, and while I agree that those are far from his most egregious tweets, given the fact of the insurrection at the Capitol, the ban doesn't seem unjustified at all. Especially since there are now many videos coming out from the insurrection of the rioters believing they are acting in accordance with Trump's wishes.
But why then did Twitter quote two tweets? The tweets do not support the decision. They could just have said "based on context off Twitter, we are banning Trump".
The fact that they didn't makes me think they were scrambling and not thinking clearly. Their reading of the tweets is bizarre. Or maybe they being dishonest about their reasoning.
What made those tweets untenable was the changed circumstances of the attack on the Capitol and the knowledge that those engaged in it were relying on Trump's support and encouragement.
If you were going to put % chances that he was speaking literally, what would you put them at? Surely you'd agree there is at least a chance he was just stream-of-conciousness tweeting what he was thinking?
https://youtu.be/270F8s5TEKY?t=151
I don’t think you can wave away the impact of Trumps words, even if he didn’t intend violence. His audience interpreted approval. That’s what matters. To disagree is to be deliberately ignorant or to argue in bad faith.
That is a totally unreasonable standard that would speak very clearly of a bias (if that is what Twitter thought, which I doubt). It isn't being applied to politicians at all evenly, it is only being applied to Trump. If the speakers intentions and literal words don't matter, and they are to be judged by the most extreme fringes of their supporters then no politician is going to be allowed to speak.
It only seems that way to you because you’re seeing only one side getting arbitrarily suspended.
My left-leaning Twitter feed has for years been regularly full of people complaining about how Twitter censors black women, activists, feminists and sex workers, while not doing enough against white supremacists, etc.
Probably the truth is that the standards are just unevenly rigid one day, loose the other, depending on who catches their attention. Policing hundreds of millions of active users is nearly impossible, and adding automated systems increases the risk of false positives.