Elon Musk Bluntly Claims Political Candidates Were Shadowbanned During Elections Under Past Twitter Regime
Elon Musk claimed on Friday that political candidates faced shadowbanning during elections from Twitter’s previous leadership.
Musk’s claim follows the second batch of the Twitter Files, highlighting internal communications from Twitter regarding censorship of accounts and stories. The files were released through journalist Barri Weiss, while others related the Hunter Biden laptop story went through Matt Taibbi.
“So here’s a question for @elonmusk and @bariweiss: were any political candidates — either in the US or elsewhere — subject to shadowbanning while they were running for office or seeking re-election?” conservative commentator Ian Miles Cheong wrote on Friday in response to the latest files.
Musk bluntly replied, “yes.”
In a followup tweet, Cheong asked if shadowbanning was done at the “behest of political agents, campaigns, activists, or the government at any level—especially federal,” but Musk did not elaborate to answer this or to name names.
“Furthermore, there is the question of whether any of Twitter’s acts of covert (shadowbanning) suppression was done at the behest of political agents, campaigns, activists, or the government at any level—especially federal,” Cheong wrote.
Furthermore, there is the question of whether any of Twitter’s acts of covert (shadowbanning) suppression was done at the behest of political agents, campaigns, activists, or the government at any level—especially federal. @elonmusk
— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) December 9, 2022
At a congressional hearing in 2018, former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey denied censoring users, targeting users, and shadowbanning Republicans.
He also announced no users were shadowbanned for political reasons.
“We don’t shadow ban, and we certainly don’t shadow ban based on political viewpoints. We do rank tweets by default to make Twitter more immediately relevant (which can be flipped off),” he wrote at the time.
Following up Dorsey’s statement were Head of Legal Policy and Trust Vijaya Gadde and Head of Product Kayvon Beykpour, claiming there were no shadowbanning practices at the platform.
