Big tech is manipulating us in ways we can’t imagine.
Twitter Inc. is reversing changes made to its retweet function intended to allegedly “curb the spread of misinformation” during the U.S. presidential election, the company said.
The microblogging site made it difficult for users to retweet a tweet with so-called “misinformation” and promoted the use of quote tweets, which included commentary from the user.
It had also imposed curbs including labeling and removal of tweets calling for people to interfere with the election process or implementation of results. We know that just about every tweet from President Trump has been flagged since then.
Twitter said it will no longer prompt quote tweets from the retweet icon. “Retweet functionality will be returning to the way it was before,” the company said in a statement on Wednesday.
This is incredible. Two weeks before the election Twitter changed how you retweet because they obviously didn’t want certain things to go viral. Now that they got the result they want, they’re going back to the old way.
Big tech is manipulating us in ways we can’t imagine. pic.twitter.com/J7jH0ogqli
— Dave Rubin (@RubinReport) December 16, 2020
But now that the tech giant was able to MANIPULATE the results and censor conservative arguments…they are going to back off the new rules.
Quote tweets instead of retweets was intended to “encourage thoughtful amplification”, but that has not happened in practice, the company said.
“The use of Quote Tweets increased, but 45% of them included single-word affirmations and 70% had less than 25 characters,” it said.
“The increase in Quote Tweets was also offset by an overall 20% decrease in sharing through both Retweets and Quote Tweets.”
Meanwhile, Facebook has in the past few days rolled back their algorithm that lifted news from authoritative outlets over hyperpartisan sources after November’s election, according to a report in the New York Times.
Now that they got the result they want, they’re going back to the old way. What will BIG TECH censor next?