Elon Musk releases the second set of 'Twitter Files,' detailing how conservatives were shadow-banned

"A new #TwitterFiles investigation reveals that teams of Twitter employees build blacklists, prevent disfavored tweets from trending, and actively limit the visibility of entire accounts or even trending topics—all in secret, without informing users," she said in a second tweet.

Weiss detailed how Twitter placed the account of Dr. Jay Bhattacharya of Stanford University on a “Trends Blacklist,” which prevented his tweets from trending because he argued that pandemic lockdowns were harmful to children.

In another instance, radio talk show host Dan Bongino was placed on a "Search Blacklist" for a time. Twitter also put Charlie Kirk's account on a "Do Not Amplify" list.

Weiss pointed out that Twitter had denied shadow-banning on the basis of political viewpoint.



“We do not shadow ban," said a statement from Twitter in 2018. “And we certainly don’t shadow ban based on political viewpoints or ideology.”

What is known as "shadow-banning" was referred to as "Visibility Filtering" at Twitter.

“Think about visibility filtering as being a way for us to suppress what people see to different levels. It’s a very powerful tool,” said one senior Twitter employee to Weiss.

Elon Musk releases the second set of 'Twitter Files,' detailing how conservatives were shadow-banned and blacklisted