Twitter Makes Big Confession
Twitter executives admitted Thursday that their algorithm kept people from seeing Republican Congressmen's tweets--but they denied doing so intentionally.
Daily Caller reports:
Several Republican congressmen’s Twitter accounts were suppressed this week because users that Twitter is actively trying to suppress engaged with the congressmen’s handles, two top Twitter executives said in a Thursday evening blog post.
Twitter executives Vijaya Gadde and Kayvon Beykpour conceded in a Thursday evening blog post that Twitter’s algorithm had limited the Republican congressmen’s visibility on the site because it linked them to what the company calls “bad-faith actors.”
Twitter, in May, began phasing in a change to its algorithm to suppress Twitter users who the company said stop short of violating Twitter’s terms of service, but are still considered harmful to “healthy conversation.” The new algorithm, Twitter said, would discriminate against those “bad-faith actors” by hiding their visibility in conversations and searches.
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Republican Reps. Matt Gaetz of Florida, Mark Meadows of North Carolina and Jim Jordan of Ohio all had their visibility in searches suppressed, a Vice News investigation published Wednesday found. Democrats were not similarly affected by the change, Vice found.
While the Republican lawmakers have gotten the headlines, this politically biased algorithm may have affected anyone on the political right. Have you noticed yourself losing engagement on Twitter? Let us know in the comments.
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