The Silicon Valley continues to exercise their self-appointed role in shaping the political conversation in the United States and beyond.
Last night a number of politically active Twitter users reported under the hashtag #TwitterLockOut a sudden drop in their number of followers. It is unknown exactly how many accounts were deleted by Twitter, but based on current flood of purge reports, it’s likely the number could be in the tens of thousands, possibly even in the hundreds of thousands.
Twitter just purged 200 of my followers last night. Anyone else have this happen too?
— Patrick Henningsen (@21WIRE) February 21, 2018
Wow what happened to a BIG bunch of my @Twitter followers? Was it something I said? Or was @Twitter stepping and fetching it for the neocon slave masters' Russia obsession?
— Daniel McAdams (@DanielLMcAdams) February 21, 2018
Twitter has just unfollowed 500 people that I was following yesterday.If this applies to you please let me know & I'll follow back.I also lost about 400 followers.#TwitterLockOut#Censorship pic.twitter.com/oA5ATykjdm
— Ian56 (@Ian56789) February 21, 2018
One possible explanation for Twitter’s mass account deletion, was a fake news story circulated by The Hill which claimed the “The Russian Bots” were pushing pro-gun hashtags in the aftermath of the Florida Shooting. The Hill’s source was Wired Magazine, who’s ‘source’ is a neoconservative Cold War throw-back ‘think tank’ and propaganda front called Hamilton 68 supposedly formed to ‘combat Russian interference’ in American life, but in reality is designed to spread misinformation and sow discord between the US and Russia as part of a wider coordinated US effort to try and intimidate and slander any outspoken online critics of US foreign policy.
Hamilton 68, the Bill Kristol sponsored Neocon propaganda site, which supposedly reports on the activity of "Russian Bots" has been proven to be a total fraud https://t.co/Ss1e3KGZky#TwitterLockOut pic.twitter.com/jcdsVQtGBk
— Ian56 (@Ian56789) February 21, 2018
This anti-Russian propaganda fake news story was then distributed by Democratic Party operatives, including former UN ambassador Samantha Power, the wife of Obama counter-information tzar Cass Sunstein.
The attempts to sow discord never stop. But this is a particularly sobering reminder that Russia will continue to use any and every opportunity to turn Americans against each other https://t.co/J0DADgXhU9
— Samantha Power (@SamanthaJPower) February 16, 2018
This has come on the heels of the Department of Justice’s embarrassing indictment in absentia of “13 Russian Trolls” from an internet marketing firm based in St Petersburg which the DOJ has managed to convince many Americans was doing the bidding of Vladimir Putin and somehow helped Donald Trump to defeat Hillary Clinton.
Apparently Twitter is trying to purge “Russian bots.”
I do live videos and have my own damn picture on my profile.
I’ve now lost 4000 followers.
They love to call conservatives Nazis, well what the f*ck do you call this kind of mass censorship?#TwitterLockOut
— Educating Liberals (@Education4Libs) February 21, 2018
Democrat ‘resistance’ activists and anti-Russian progressives cheered the move claiming that Twitter was merely ‘cleansing’ its platform of Russian Bots.
The #TwitterLockout is merely a purge of bots. You had ten thousand russian bots following you? The FBI literally concluded this was the most sophisticated online attack of the US. You should be glad. Have your own thoughts but don't pat yourself on the back for fake follows.
— Darren Hayes (@darrenhayes) February 21, 2018
It’s important to remember that the original “Russian Bot” conspiracy theory was invented by the Obama White House working with Virginia’s Democratic Senator Mark Warner who pressured Facebook executives to produce a ‘Russian Bot’ narrative when there wasn’t one to begin with. That’s clear collusion between Facebook and Washington to invent a crisis. That’s a fact.
Based on that, along with many other instances of political collusion and funding streams from the Silicon Valley to the Democrat Party, it’s now abundantly clear that tech executive oligarchs have decided to roll out wide-ranging political censorship activities in the run-up to the US mid-term elections.
RT International reports….
Conservative Twitter users across the platform are, metaphorically at least, setting their hair on fire amid claims their accounts were locked in a reported “purge” of right-wing voices.
The move, which has yet to be confirmed by Twitter has nonetheless been labelled an attempt at “mass censorship” by critics and is thought to be a bid to rid the platform of automated accounts – or ‘bots’ – set up to artificially amplify conservative campaigns online.
Some of the more rabid elements of conservative Twitter have reacted with incredulity, claiming they have lost hundreds of followers who, like them, have been targeted for their cutting-edge commentary and off-beat political polemics.
(…) Much like #ReleaseTheMemo, another recent aberration from the social ether, #TwitterLockout has spread like wildfire, racking up around 87,000 tweets and trending worldwide since the so-called purge began.
The phenomenon comes amid heightened fears of Russian influence on US elections. For some Twitter users the Russian influence is clear.
Read more at RT International
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