The thing about Project Veritas is that they don't always know when they embark on one of their hidden-video sting operations if there's really anything to sting. They made their reputation by taking down ACORN, and quite a takedown it was, as James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles got ACORN staffers to admit all kinds of misdeeds.
Some of the stuff since then has felt like desperate attempts to recapture the glory of the ACORN days, and the recent targeting of the Washington Post was a total disaster. Veritas was trying to fool Post reporters into jumping on a phony Roy Moore story to show that they weren't scrupulous about running with unverified information.
I have many many problems with the Post, but at least the reporters Veritas targeted on this day exercised exactly the scrutiny they should have, and then turned around and outed Project Veritas as the source of the phony info.
That's what happens when you try to burn people. Sometimes you get burned.
But sometimes you're on to something, and that certainly seems to be the case with Veritas's latest video. In hidden camera discussions with Twitter employees, Veritas exposed what many have long suspected: Twitter doesn't officially censor conservatives, but there are ways of doing what you don't officially do.
And boy, do they:
HIDDEN CAMERA: Twitter Engineers To "Ban a Way of Talking" Through "Shadow Banning"
It sounds to me like Twitter's bias works pretty much like that of the mainstream media. There's no official policy of favoring the left or censoring the right, but there doesn't need to be. You give employees the power to use their own judgment, and you hire a certain kind of employee, and the bias is real in practice even if it's deniable as policy.
And there's simply no way you can hire a workforce that's overwhelmingly one side and expect it to be totally fair. It's not going to work that way. If you have a policy against "hate speech" and all your employees think it's "hateful" to be pro-Trump, this is what you're going to get. The values of most businesses are determined by the culture of the people they hire, not by their "official policies."
It must drive these people crazy that their platform is the one the president uses most prolifically to communicate with the American people. The sentiments you hear on this video explain why half of them want Trump's account banned, which I doubt will ever happen because Trump is boon for Twitter and I'm sure they realize it.
The irony, of course, is that Twitter is actually the meanest, most vicious social media platform anywhere. It's not any sort of useful forum for serious discussions, which makes it the perfect place for mockers and scoffers. To whatever extent Trump has become the king of Twitter, it's because he's mastered Twitter's content culture and learned how to turn it to his advantage. If you really think Trump's tweets are so bad, spend some time reading what everyone else on there is saying.
The people who claim they're upholding standards are really just presiding over a cesspool of bitterness and cruelty. And as a result, they probably did a lot to elect the guy they loathe.
In the meantime, all the rest of the conservatives trying to use Twitter should understand what's going on behind the scenes. And the next time your content suddenly disappears - or everyone suddenly stops responding to you - well no, it's not just a coincidence or a glitch. They're doing it on purpose, but unofficially, so they can offer a plausible denial you should not believe for one second.
The thing about Project Veritas is that they don't always know when they embark on one of their hidden-video sting operations if there's really anything to sting. They made their reputation by taking down ACORN, and quite a takedown it was, as James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles got ACORN staffers to admit all kinds of misdeeds.
Some of the stuff since then has felt like desperate attempts to recapture the glory of the ACORN days, and the recent targeting of the Washington Post was a total disaster. Veritas was trying to fool Post reporters into jumping on a phony Roy Moore story to show that they weren't scrupulous about running with unverified information.
