*Update - Account restored* Twitter Exec Censors #WhichHillary in advance of Sunday Fundraiser

[arcane1]

Twitter wants to control what political messages you see.

In a truly egregious move yesterday, Twitter suspended the account responsible for #WhichHillary, activists @GuerrillaDems. Twitter also removed #WhichHillary from trending status — odd, considering the hashtag received more than 450,000 tweets in less than 24 hours.

This isn’t the first time Twitter has exerted political control like this. It is also a demonstrable conflict of interest, in light of Twitter Executive Chairman Omid Kordestani’s Sunday, 2/28 fundraiser with Clinton.

-snip-

http://m.dailykos.com/story/2016/02/26/1491618/-Twitter-Exec-Censors-WhichHillary-in-advance-of-Sunday-Fundraiser-Key-Primaries

I don't have Twitter, so if this turns out to be bullshit I will happily delete. I seriously want this to be bullshit.

[berni_mccoy]

1. That's some serious bullshit and goes to show that Hillary has the backing

Of Corporate America.

[azmom]

2. It's true. It was reported yesterday that it was being done

This is the way they subverve democracy.

[sufrommich]

3. Oh for fuck sake. This conspiratorial crap is

getting pathetic.

[restorefreedom]

7. more info

http://www.opposingviews.com/i/social/whichhillary-tag-goes-viral-twitter

[arcane1]

8. If you have evidence that this is false, present it. I would LOVE it!

[NWCorona]

10. +1

[Politicalboi]

29. They don't

They feel the Queen can shit all over us, and still get our vote come November. They are so wrong.

[nadinbrzezinski]

18. So it did not happen either in Mexico

#yamecanse

http://notigodinez.com/y-cibernautas-desafian-la-censura-en-twitter-lanzando-ahora-el-ya-me-canse-2/

The difference is... our press will never touch it.

[xocet]

47. Could you please note what "Ya me canse" means?

I don't trust google translate as far as I can throw a stack of proper German dictionaries - even if they are bound together with duct tape.

[nadinbrzezinski]

49. Ok here is the context

The words mean "I am tired"

This came from a presser given by the AG during the height of the ayotzinapa crisis, and it lasted for close to two hours. The press was not done... and the AG violated unwritten press rules. He did not even try the camera man trick. anyway, a reporter asked a question, and he said, "I am tired" and walked out of the room... twitter responded in less than kind ways.

Here is the NPR version of it, Murillo Karam leaving the stage that is

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/02/27/389530564/mexican-attorney-general-who-handled-case-of-vanished-students-to-step-down

I watched that on the official youtube feed for the AG office and it was a gobsmacking moment

[xocet]

52. Thank you for the translation, context and link. That is very interesting. n/t

[passiveporcupine]

41. Conspiracy?

Yes, it may be a conspiracy...it appears to be true, not theory though.

[AlbertCat]

44. This conspiratorial crap is getting pathetic.

I wonder why anyone would believe such a thing???

Oh wait...no I don't. This kind of trickery is defining Hillary's campaign.


No wonder it's believed.

[shenmue]

46. Fuck these people.

[JackRiddler]

73. Magic kill-word + ROFL smiley = de nada

Totally winning reply. Doesn't just look like ignorant invocation of bully-words in the face of undesired facts.

[Mika]

4. Is this the same Twitter that Hil appropriated State dept servers to...

... for the Twitter revolutions in Iran and Libya?


.

[arcane1]

6. She also spent taxpayer money purchasing Twitter followers for the State Department n/t

[NWCorona]

12. Hmm

[NWCorona]

11. Did not know that!

[arcane1]

15. It stopped in 2013 when Kerry took over

"'In 2013, the State Department, which has more than 400,000 likes and was recently most popular in Cairo, said it would stop buying Facebook fans after its inspector general criticized the agency for spending $630,000 to boost the numbers,' the wire service reported. "

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3038621/More-2-MILLION-Hillary-Clinton-s-Twitter-followers-fake-never-tweet.html#ixzz41IWvaeL5

[redruddyred]

43. are you telling me that....

.... hillary clinton is the KIM KARDASHIAN of politics? :0

[shenmue]

48. Whatever that was, put it down.

[think]

5. Side note: Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed doubles his stake in Twitter

Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed doubles his stake in Twitter

http://fortune.com/2015/10/07/saudi-prince-twitter-stock/

[mikehiggins]

9. They don't even try to hide their conflict of interest

That's how arrogant the Establishment has become.

[Lucinda]

13. Its not blocked. It is alive and well.

https://twitter.com/hashtag/whichhillary?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Ehashtag

[nashville_brook]

17. here's the truth -->

http://www.guerrillasocialists.com/post/140018333267/yes-were-being-censored-by-twitter

Yes. We’re Being Censored by Twitter

It’s true we’re being censored by twitter. We’re also still locked down. The lock down occurred at the height of the #WhichHillary hashtag trend. We are trying to contact Twitter, but I don’t think they want to answer questions at this point.

We announced last night that we were going to try a last minute twitter bomb on the hashtag #WhichHillary, because of the Black Lives Matters video. The reason it was last minute is because of the time and not connection to Black Lives Matter. It was something we thought was worth doing for Black Lives Matter. While we can’t take credit for making it pop, we definitely have a voice and our followers are always down for a little thumbing it in the eye of the Establishment.

We contacted the groups we are associated with on twitter to let them know about the hashtag. One of those groups is connected to Bernie Sanders social media team, but they just wanted to lay back and let BLM do their thing. But since we are independent we just went ahead with juicing it.

We then loaded our Buffer with a bunch of tweets that directly attacked Hillary’s record and money influences, then called it a night. By morning, we all know it hit number one. We started to tweet and take the account a little off topic, so we wouldn’t overdue the #WhichHillary and then it just locked up.

The tweet they stopped was a reminder to everyone about March For Bernie, but it said all our tweets weren’t legit, no matter what was written. They changed the reason for the lock-down and will probably have some BS answer for why they did it. It’s never happen before, nothing was different today.

Once we were locked down someone mentioned the account saying they were censoring us and sent us a screen shot. Twitter has been removing our tweets from their search engine. One in particular that called out Hillary for lying about Priorities USA not being her SuperPac. There looks to be numerous tweets that Twitter is censoring the public from. The Guerrilla Socialists do not sexual harass or harass anyone on the internet. The censorship is directed squarely at Hillary and her connections to SuperPacs, Wall Street, and other corporate interests.

All that being said, we’re still locked down but plan to go to March For Bernie in Seattle on Saturday Feb 27th. Hopefully we can communicate with our twitter community on that day.

Slick Lion

[Lucinda]

21. The most recent post with that hastag a few mintes ago was from Ashley Williams - with

only a couple dozen re-tweets. It would appear that people have moved on?

[shenmue]

50. That doesn't fit the paranoid schematic

[Lucinda]

51. Yeah....

Nice hat!

[bettyellen]

27. what does "loading our buffer with a bunch of tweets" mean? is that like spamming or using bots?

I'm confused by a lot of this: wouldn’t overdue the #WhichHillary?
it said all our tweets weren’t legit, no matter what was written. They changed the reason for the lock-down and will probably have some BS answer for why they did it.

What reasons did they give- what is meant by not-legit, overdue?

[Fawke Em]

33. You can use programs that allow you to write several Tweets

all at once and then time them to go out in intervals.

Businesses use those tools for social media all the time. I do. I write about 10 - 15 Tweets and schedule them to go out over the next two or three days. That frees me up from having to remind myself "it's time to Tweet" when I'm busy writing a blog piece or developing an ad.

[bettyellen]

35. Ah, so it is like spamming. Now I get why he was afraid "to overdue" it. And why it was blocked.

Interesting how Twitter is supposed to reflect spur of the moment reactions of a diverse group- but you get shit like this, messing with it.

[Fawke Em]

61. No..it's not like spamming at all.

It's allowed so people can sleep.

Sorry, you old folks don't get it.

I'm 46, btw.

[Kentonio]

65. It's nothing to do with spam

It's just a tool of convenience. You still have to write the tweets you're going to send, it just allows you to space them out rather than send them all in one big clump. Or to prevent you having to come back and keep sending them individually which can be annoying if you're busy.

[bettyellen]

75. Well the effect is like spamming- automating the sending of the tweets. So I get why Twitter would

Last edited Sat Feb 27, 2016, 06:10 PM - Edit history (1)

want to limit it.

[Kentonio]

76. I don't want to sound mean, this is something that unless you work with the particular software

You probably wouldn't know about. Applications like this are very common amongst online marketing people in particular and certainly wouldn't normally be considered spam in any way. Twitter has never had any problem with it, because like I said before it's mostly just used to release tweets at particular times rather than send out mass messages. I can understand why it might have caused confusion though.

[bettyellen]

78. I know they are common in marketing, but apparently Twitter does have an issue with it- to the

extent that they try to prevent people from "gaming" what will be a trending tweet. Which is apparently what this whole thing is about.

[Kentonio]

79. No.

They don't, and that is why this case is notable. On several other occasions Twitter have deliberately stopped trending hashtags, that is what they did here. That's why the anger has happened.

[Fawke Em]

31. You can still use the hashtag. Duh.

It's being blocked from TRENDING so that if you didn't already know about it, you wouldn't and so that Twitter users can't see what the most popular subjects are.

[Lucinda]

32. It has to be actually used a lot to be trending. The last time I looked

Ashley William's last tweet has been re-tweeted less than 50 times.

I think people have just moved on. Which is exactly what twitter does. They are crazy hot for something one minute, and over it the next.

[Fawke Em]

34. It's not just Ashley typing it.

https://twitter.com/search?f=tweets&vertical=news&q=%23WhichHillary&src=tyah

It's still quite popular.

[Lucinda]

36. I know, but my point is the woman behind it's surge, isnt being re-tweeted.

I think the bulk of it has run it's course.

[Fawke Em]

58. That has nothing to do with it.

You don't understand Twitter.

[tammywammy]

57. If it doesn't have any new people joining the hashtag then it's not trending

If it's just the same people using the same hashtag then it's not a trend. It has to be getting new people Twittering.

[Fawke Em]

59. I know that. The other poster doesn't.

[TheFarS1de]

53. Twitter in some instances hides trending tweets .

It is all well documented and just recently they initiated a censorship panel . This is not conspiratorial stuff , simply reality .

[nashville_brook]

14. k and r

[nadinbrzezinski]

16. They have done this in the past

for example, with Mexico and #yamecanse, the difference is that our media will never report on this, while Mexican media did.

http://notigodinez.com/y-cibernautas-desafian-la-censura-en-twitter-lanzando-ahora-el-ya-me-canse-2/

[libtodeath]

19. That is what I would expect of repukes not our side.

[bunnies]

22. None of the elites are on our side.

None.

[elana i am]

20. it's the algorithms

just posting the hashtag repeatedly doesn't keep it trending unless it's consistently being tweeted by new tweeters. once a trend slows, it can still be posted about thousands upon thousands of times and still no longer trend. it just means it's the same people posting multiple posts with the same hashtag. it's akin to the hits/visitors/page views thing. they do it that way to keep spammers from trending.

the algorithm is complex, so there's more to it than that, but that's the biggest reason. and as the article explains below, the algorithm weeds out even still trending topics after they have been trending for an extended period of time.

article that explains a little more:

http://www.npr.org/2011/12/07/143013503/how-twitters-trending-algorithm-picks-its-topics

[Lucinda]

23. Yep. Ashley Williams' most recent tweet has only been re-tweeted a couple dozen times

I suspect twitter has just moved on, as they usually do.

[starroute]

54. Any particular reason you had to say that three different times?

I assume most people read a thread from top to bottom. Seeing virtually identical posts over and over doesn't reinforce the message. It just gets annoying.

[Lucinda]

55. No...Most people don't seem to read top to bottom here. I do though.

There are times I have had to answer the same question 6 times based on one of my OP's. A lot of people read the OP, then scroll and post.

It's an odd place.

[FlatBaroque]

74. And what you keep saying in this thread with regard to Twitter shows

profound ignorance regarding the topic.

[GoneFishin]

77. I noticed that too. Seems more like a propaganda mission more than just expressing an opinion.

[sufrommich]

24. Don't bother,it falls on deaf ears. It's a massive

conspiracy and millions of people are involved.

[Kentonio]

66. Yes we're clearly crazy for believing Twitter would do something

That they've been shown to have done numerous times in the past. But this time, gosh it must just be a conspiracy theory.

[sufrommich]

67. The account got caught spamming twitter and was

temporarily suspended for it,there's your conspiracy.

[Kentonio]

68. You really shouldn't talk about how Twitter works

When you clearly have very little idea how Twitter works. This had absolutely nothing to do with spam.

[sufrommich]

70. Yes,it was spamming. This little known account sure

got a lot of publicity over it though.

[Kentonio]

71. You don't know what Buffer is clearly..

Seriously if you think this has anything to do with spam you're very mistaken. Unless of course you can actually provide some proof of that?

[bettyellen]

28. Everything got bumped by a shocking episode of How to Get Away With Murder

[artislife]

60. Don't tell me...waiting to enjoy on the week end...nt

[bettyellen]

72. So shocking, I am going to have to start watching again after reading the tweets!

[elana i am]

30. one more article

i had to scrounge a litte but found the original article i read on this. it's form 2011 and twitter's algorithm has evolved, but it's still the basics.

[link:https://blog.bufferapp.com/five-twitter-secrets-about-censored-trending-topics|

[jeff47]

37. The algorithms locked their account?

Yeah. Sure.

[Doctor_J]

25. Conservatives hate free speech. If "net neutrality" ever goes awa, all you'll ever see is far right

propaganda.

[senz]

26. Well, we all know the Corporate Candidate cannot win a fair fight.

[Tarc]

38. The account is no longer blocked

https://twitter.com/GuerrillaDems/status/703279943594090496?s=03

Seems it was a mistake, though I'm sure the ones won't buy that.

[fun n serious]

39. I've seen it done when people use hashtags for

death threats or threats of violence. When #Ferguson was trending it was temporarily blocked too and others I have seen

[liberal_at_heart]

40. They are making a huge financial mistake on this one. Millennials will simply find

some other social media to use and will drop twitter. Millennials cannot be silenced.

[sarge43]

42. If this is true and like the OP I hope it isn't,

then Hillary Clinton could do the honorable thing, denounce this and refuse to attend the fundraiser until this is stopped. "I don't want or need to win through censorship."

[AZ Progressive]

63. Queen Hillary hopes media censorship will mean that most people don't read about this

[sarge43]

64. Oh, I know.

Further, if she backed away from this, she might miss out on a chance for more money in the war chest.

[AzDar]

45. K & R

[senz]

56. Interesting how Hill people ALWAYS jump in to say, "Move along. Nothing to see here."

Makes them look like they're trying to cover something up.

[m-lekktor]

69. especially when "nothing to see" is corrected or apologized for

which is proof it was there to begin with.

[SoapBox]

62. "Mistake" my ass...

Had just been reading various Tweets about this (missed it earlier)...it's been restored but I call bullshit on it being a mistake.