Milo Yiannopoulos, Roger Stone Announce Anti-Trust Lawsuit Against Twitter

Award-winning journalist and New York Times bestselling author MILO is joining longtime Donald Trump advisor and Republican strategist Roger Stone in an anti-trust lawsuit against social media giant Twitter.

In July 2016 MILO made headlines when Twitter permanently suspended his account following a negative review he wrote of the newly released, all-female Ghostbusters movie.

Stone had his account permanently suspended in late 2017 after posting several tweets with expletives. Both contend they did not violate Twitter’s terms of service and were targeted instead for arbitrary reasons.

In a statement about MILO joining the lawsuit, Roger Stone said:

We continue to explore a broad lawsuit challenging Twitter’s censorship and the hypocrisy of their rules for online conduct which seem to be disproportionately levied against conservative voices in an obvious attempt to silence us. Verified tweeters call for my murder online every day, but Twitter doesn’t ban them.

We believe it is time to expose their manipulation of algorithms, ‘shadowbanning’ and other online techniques used to limit our reach. It’s time for Twitter to be regulated like a public utility or perish. I am heartened that my friend Milo is prepared to join our legal action along with other conservatives who have been gagged by the Twitter censors.

In a January 11 statement about the anti-trust case, MILO said:

I am Patient Zero of the Twitter war against conservatives and libertarians. The company declared war on free speech when it banned me in July 2016. At the time, I appreciated the free press. But I have come to realize that Twitter’s recklessness and bias toward conservatives and free thinkers represents a threat to free speech and democracy, such is Twitter’s monopolistic grip on journalistic discourse.

Footage released this week by investigative journalists at Project Veritas reveal a defiantly biased company whose hateful and divisive political attitudes are robbing libertarians and conservative journalists and media personalities of the right to freely express their opinions in the press.

The biggest tech debate of the next decade is whether technology companies, in particular social networks, should be regulated as public utilities. It is becoming increasingly clear, given their rampant abuses, that they should. And Twitter is the worst offender of them all.

Twitter Shadow Banning Undercover Video Released by Project Veritas

MILO discussed details of the case in an episode of his new show, THE MILO SHOW, located at dangerous.com, which first aired live on January 11, 2018.

Twitter Shadow Banning Undercover Video Released by Project Veritas

Steven Pierre, Twitter engineer explains “shadow banning,” says “it’s going to ban a way of talking”

Former Twitter software engineer Abhinav Vadrevu on shadow banning: “they just think that no one is engaging with their content, when in reality, no one is seeing it”

Former Twitter Content Review Agent Mo Norai explains banning process: “if it was a pro-Trump thing and I’m anti-Trump… I banned his whole account… it’s at your discretion”

When asked if banning process was an unwritten rule, Norai adds “Very. A lot of unwritten rules… It was never written it was more said”

Olinda Hassan, Policy Manager for Twitter Trust and Safety explains, “we’re trying to ‘down rank’… shitty people to not show up,” “we’re working [that] on right now”

“Shadow banning” to be used to stealthily target political views- former Twitter engineer says, “that’s a thing”

Censorship of certain political viewpoints to be automated via “machine learning” according to Twitter software engineer

Parnay Singh, Twitter Direct Messaging Engineer, on machine learning algorithms, “you have like five thousand keywords to describe a redneck…” “the majority of it are for Republicans”

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(San Francisco) In the latest undercover Project Veritas video investigation, current and former Twitter employees are on camera explaining steps the social media giant is taking to censor political content that they don’t like.

This video release follows the first undercover Twitter exposé Project Veritas released on January 10th which showed Twitter Senior Network Security Engineer Clay Haynes saying that Twitter is “more than happy to help the Department of Justice with their little [President Donald Trump] investigation.” Twitter responded to the video with a statementshortly after that release, stating “the individual depicted in this video was speaking in a personal capacity and does not represent of speak for Twitter.” The video released by Project Veritas today features eight employees, and a Project Veritas spokesman said there are more videos featuring additional employees coming.

On January 3rd 2018 at a San Francisco restaurant, Abhinov Vadrevu, a former Twitter Software Engineer explains a strategy, called “shadow banning,” that to his knowledge, Twitter has employed:

“One strategy is to shadow ban so you have ultimate control. The idea of a shadow ban is that you ban someone but they don’t know they’ve been banned, because they keep posting and no one sees their content. So they just think that no one is engaging with their content, when in reality, no one is seeing it.”

Twitter is in the process of automating censorship and banning, says Twitter Software Engineer Steven Pierre on December 8th of 2017:

“Every single conversation is going to be rated by a machine and the machine is going to say whether or not it’s a positive thing or a negative thing. And whether it’s positive or negative doesn’t (inaudible), it’s more like if somebody’s being aggressive or not. Right? Somebody’s just cursing at somebody, whatever, whatever. They may have point, but it will just vanish… It’s not going to ban the mindset, it’s going to ban, like, a way of talking.”

Olinda Hassan, a Policy Manager for Twitter’s Trust and Safety team explains on December 15th, 2017 at a Twitter holiday party that the development of a system of “down ranking” “shitty people” is in the works:

“Yeah. That’s something we’re working on. It’s something we’re working on. We’re trying to get the shitty people to not show up. It’s a product thing we’re working on right now.”

Former Twitter Engineer Conrado Miranda confirms on December 1st, 2017 that tools are already in place to censor pro-Trump or conservative content on the platform. When asked whether or not these capabilities exist, Miranda says, “that’s a thing.”

In a conversation with former Twitter Content Review Agent Mo Norai on May 16th, 2017, we learned that in the past Twitter would manually ban or censor Pro-Trump or conservative content. When asked about the process of banning accounts, Norai said, “On stuff like that it was more discretion on your view point, I guess how you felt about a particular matter…”

When asked to clarify if that process was automated Norai confirmed that it was not:

“Yeah, if they said this is: ‘Pro-Trump’ I don’t want it because it offends me, this, that. And I say I banned this whole thing, and it goes over here and they are like, ‘Oh you know what? I don’t like it too. You know what? Mo’s right, let’s go, let’s carry on, what’s next?’”

Norai also revealed that more left-leaning content would go through their selection process with less political scrutiny, “It would come through checked and then I would be like ‘Oh you know what? This is okay. Let it go.’”

Norai explains that this selection process wasn’t exactly Twitter policy, but rather they were following unwritten rules from the top:

“A lot of unwritten rules, and being that we’re in San Francisco, we’re in California, very liberal, a very blue state. You had to be… I mean as a company you can’t really say it because it would make you look bad, but behind closed doors are lots of rules.”

“There was, I would say… Twitter was probably about 90% Anti-Trump, maybe 99% Anti-Trump.”

At a San Francisco bar on January 5th, Pranay Singh details how the shadow-banning algorithms targeting right-leaning are engineered:

“Yeah you look for Trump, or America, and you have like five thousand keywords to describe a redneck. Then you look and parse all the messages, all the pictures, and then you look for stuff that matches that stuff.”

UNDERCOVER VIDEO: Sr Network Security Engineer Reveals Twitter Ready to Give Trump’s Private DMs to DOJ

When asked if the majority of the algorithms are targeted against conservative or liberal users of Twitter, Singh said, “I would say majority of it are for Republicans.”

Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe believes the power over speech Silicon Valley tech giants has is unprecedented and dangerous:

“What kind of world do we live in where computer engineers are the gatekeepers of the ‘way people talk?’ This investigation brings forth information of profound public importance that educates people about how free they really are to express their views online.”

Project Veritas plans to release more undercover video from within Twitter in the coming days.

Mr. O’Keefe has just completed a book about this series entitled “AMERICAN PRAVDA: My fight for Truth in the Era of Fake News.” The book will be released by St. Martin’s Press on January 16, 2018.