James Woods Alleges He's Being Shadow Banned, Encourages His Followers to #VoteGOP
After a brief suspension on Twitter, actor James Woods is back at it, but is now claiming he is being censored, or shadow banned, by the social media giant.
On Wednesday, the conservative actor tweeted that he was hearing “so many reports” of Twitter users not seeing his tweets in their timelines.
He wrote, “I am getting so many reports from you on @Twitter and through DM’s that my tweets aren’t being posted on your timelines. We know @Twitter is doing everything it can to strangle conservative voices.”
I am getting so many reports from you on @Twitter and through DM’s that my tweets aren’t being posted on your timelines. We know @Twitter is doing everything it can to strangle conservative voices. After the #midterms the President will no doubt focus on social media, so #VoteGOP
— James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) October 10, 2018
Woods is describing what many refer to as “shadow banning.”
Shadow banning is the technique allegedly used by the social media company that allows users to tweet, but those tweets don’t show up in their followers’ timelines. The users simply have no idea that they’ve been shadow banned because they maintain all their functionality.
Woods then encouraged followers to #VoteGOP in the November midterms, saying that “after the #midterms the President will no doubt focus on social media.”
Woods was suspended from Twitter in September for posting a meme that Twitter would later claim could potentially “impact an election.”
In August, according to The Washington Times, Twitter denied engaging in shadow banning. The company continues to deny that the company shadow bans, saying that it doesn’t make decisions based on political ideology.
In a statement reported by the Washington Examiner on Wednesday, Twitter spokeswoman Liz Kelly said, “We do rank tweets and search results.”
“We do this,” she continued, “because Twitter is most useful when it’s immediately relevant. These ranking models take many signals into consideration to best organize tweets for timely relevance. We must also address bad-faith actors who intend to manipulate or detract from healthy conversation.”
In September, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey told Congress in a written statement that, “Twitter does not use political ideology to make any decisions.” He added that the company believes “strongly in being impartial” and tries to enforce its rules “impartially.”
Woods, however, seems to be echoing a sentiment felt by many conservatives.
In a poll released Thursday by the Media Research Center, 49 percent of conservatives said they don’t trust Twitter to “treat all of it’s users equally.”
Additionally, 10 percent of conservatives have stopped using Twitter all together because they felt like the social media giant was censoring them. Eleven percent of conservatives said that they are seriously considering leaving the platform for the same reason.
Dan Gainor, MRC’s vice president of business and culture said Twitter needs to be “worried about these results” because the company is “blatantly ignoring” millions of its users.
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