Caitlin Johnstone

I decided a while back that I’m just going to document all the weird censorship activities that I personally encounter from giant social media corporations in order to have information available to the public so the hive mind can connect the dots on all the myriad ways that anti-establishment voices are being silenced. A lot of the tactics that these corporations are using to stifle dissent depend on the fact that they’re occurring within individual social media accounts, and the only way to learn more about how those tactics are being used is for all of us to publicly share our own experiences with them.

It might look a little unusual, but in my opinion by making as much anti-establishment noise as I can and then documenting all the ways my voice is silenced and marginalized I’m performing a useful journalistic service to the new media landscape. In a corporatist system of government, wherein corporate power is not separate in any meaningful way from government power, corporate censorship is government censorship. It’s important to learn how these quasi-governmental surveillance-based Silicon Valley corporations are protecting the establishment on which their plutocratic dynasties are built.

Before I go on, let me remind my audience that last year Twitter openly admitted to censoring the #DNCLeaks hashtag in the lead up to the 2016 election to prevent it from trending, which Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey blatantly lied about doing at the time. Let me also remind you that Twitter, along with Facebook and Google, was asked on the Senate floor a few months ago to take measures to “silence” rebellious voices in order to “prevent the fomenting of discord” in America.

A few days ago I documented how my Twitter follower count was apparently being artificially throttled by some sort of algorithm, a phenomenon that has been reported by many others. Since that time my follower throttling appears to have either diminished or ceased, but I’m seeing indications of yet another form of sneaky censorship being used by the social media giant.

A month or two ago I noticed that there were a bunch of names on my Twitter “mute” list, which I made a note of because I never use the “mute” function on Twitter; if I want someone out of my life I block them, which is a different function with a separate list of its own. I cleared off everyone who was on that list and added them to my block list, erroneously assuming that I’d intended to block them but muted them accidentally and then forgotten about them.

Today a reader I’m familiar with notified me that I’d been added to his “mute” list somehow, which he would never do. This led me to check my own mute list again, and I found that two names had been added to it who I’ve definitely never blocked or muted.

Hey, Caitlin! Good thing I caught this thread via Daniel, as I didn't see any of your originals in my timeline, though I follow you. Turns out Twitter had me muting you, which of course I would NEVER do intentionally. Another for your list of anti-@caitoz pranks. WTF is up?!

— Lyndon Olson (@fanoonman) March 29, 2018

I checked on both accounts, and neither are the sort of pro-MSM establishment Democrat who tend to give me a hard time. One supports WikiLeaks and expresses skepticism of the establishment Russia narrative, and the other appears to be a Trump supporting “Qanon”/pedogate type. The latter is currently going by the monicker “#Shadowban Girl” because since she joined Twitter she has noticed her voice being stifled. If she is being added to the mute lists of potential followers, this would explain why.

And that’s all I have on this. Maybe it’s something, maybe it’s a fluke, but experience has taught me that it’s always better to say something either way so that the information is out there. If you’re an active Twitter user, please do check your mute list by going to “Settings and privacy”, then clicking “Muted accounts” and selecting “All”. If you see anyone on that list who you don’t think you muted, let us know in the comments section of wherever you’re reading this, and if not let us know too. It’s important to get the information out there either way.

It’s not okay for these powerful corporations to manipulate our personal social media settings to prevent us from viewing anti-establishment content. If you notice anything weird, make as much noise about it as possible so that we can all see what’s going on. We’ve all got to do everything we can to fight establishment propaganda and speak truth to power, and that means making as much space for ourselves as we can on the largest platforms available.

https://twitter.com/EVBernin/status/979511871660150784

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