#Liberas calling for violence series#

To exclude such spurious cases, I designed my own database to include only unambiguous cases of identifiable individuals or organizations from English-speaking western democracies believed to be engaging in political advocacy in good faith. Sometimes, Twitter removes an account because a user is thought to be engaging in a program of disinformation-for example, accounts allegedly run by agents of the Russian government that purport to identify with one side of the American political spectrum. I included only those cases in which the identity of the banned individual or entity was clear.

But given the wide variety of sources we used to compile the database, it is unlikely that any oversights would be substantial enough to meaningfully change the results. And I invite readers to contact me if I missed any cases or made any errors. In order to ensure reproducibility, I have made the data on suspended individuals and groups available online. It is possible that I missed certain cases. With the help of two research assistants, I searched both conservative and liberal media sources. As a proxy for prominence, I used the criterion of whether the ban was important enough to warrant coverage in mainstream news sources. I began my analysis by compiling a list of every prominent individual or political party known to have been banned from Twitter since its founding. presidential election, 21 supported Donald Trump. Of 22 prominent, politically active individuals who are known to have been suspended since 2005 and who expressed a preference in the 2016 U.S.

My results make it difficult to take claims of political neutrality seriously. To see whether there is an empirical basis for such claims, I decided to look into the issue of Twitter bias by putting together a database of prominent, politically active users who are known to have been temporarily or permanently suspended from the platform. Until now, conservatives have had to rely on anecdotes to make their case. Podcasters Joe Rogan and Sam Harris both received backlash from their respective audiences for not pressing Dorsey hard enough on the censorship issue. A June, 2018 Pew poll found that 72% of Americans believe that social media companies censor views they don’t like, with members of the public being four times more likely to report a belief that such institutions favor liberals over conservatives than the opposite. Dorsey appeared on two different podcasts, on which he similarly denied any bias against the right. We believe strongly in being impartial, and we strive to enforce our rules impartially. This includes Donald Trump, who last year accused Twitter of “shadow banning” Republicans, and promised to “look into this discriminatory and illegal practice.” A few months later, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey made a categorical denial of any bias while testifying before Congress: Let me be clear about one important and foundational fact: Twitter does not use political ideology to make any decisions, whether related to ranking content on our service or how we enforce our rules.

#Liberas calling for violence series#

Submissions related to this series may be directed to conservatives believe that social media companies are biased against their views. This is a response to “ Who Controls the Platform?“-a multi-part Quillette series authored by social-media insiders.