James Wood’s took to Twitter on Thursday to denounce the platform where he has more than 1.5 million followers, urging fans who said they have been “shadow banned” by the social media platform to sell off any stock they had in the company as punishment.
“I urge every @Twitter user who has had an account shadow banned to sell all stock holdings in @Twitter,” he said. “Hit these creeps in their stock value. It’s the only way to fight this bias. We fought @facebook (stock down) and @CNN (ratings down) and won. It works! @Twitter next.”
I urge every @Twitter user who has had an acoount shadow banned to sell all stock holdings in @Twitter. Hit these creeps in their stock value. It’s the only way to fight this bias. We fought @facebook (stock down) and @CNN (ratings down) and won. It works! @Twitter next.
— James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) July 26, 2018
In a followup, the actor tagged Twitter founder and chief Jack Dorsey, advising him to be smarter than his social media rival Mark Zuckerberg.
“It is @Twitter that will suffer from this, @jack. I divested @Twitter from my portfolio, not even as a boycott, but because the stock will drop in value now that investors realize how biased it is,” said Woods. “This nonsense destroyed @facebook. Be smarter than Mark Zuckerberg. It’s not hard.”
It is @Twitter that will suffer from this, @jack. I divested @Twitter from my portfolio, not even as a boycott, but because the stock will drop in value now that investors realize how biased it is. This nonsense destroyed @facebook. Be smarter than Mark Zuckerberg. It’s not hard. https://t.co/1hRTzF4eh4
— James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) July 26, 2018
Woods is the latest high profile conservative to sound the alarm after Vice News accused the company of “shadow banning” in a recent article. The piece contended that a number of GOP officials were not auto-populating in the site’s search bar, but that their Democratic counterparts did not face a similar issue.
President Trump himself elevated the issue to national attention on Thursday, tweeting that it was “illegal and discriminatory” and he would “look into” it.
“Twitter “SHADOW BANNING” prominent Republicans. Not good. We will look into this discriminatory and illegal practice at once! Many complaints,” he wrote.
Twitter “SHADOW BANNING” prominent Republicans. Not good. We will look into this discriminatory and illegal practice at once! Many complaints.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 26, 2018
In a lengthy Twitter thread yesterday, the company’s chief of product Kayvon Beykpour said the issue was the result of a “machine learning” snafu that downgraded accounts deemed “unhealthy” to positive conversation on the website.
“In May, we started using behavioral signals and machine learning to reduce people’s ability to detract from healthy public conversation on Twitter. This approach looks at account behavior and interactions with other accounts that violate our rules,” Beykpour explained.
“Some accounts weren’t being auto-suggested even when people were searching for their specific name. Our usage of the behavior signals within search was causing this to happen & making search results seem inaccurate. We’re making a change today that will improve this.”
Twitter did not provide an explanation about why all those accounts just happened to be for conservative users. Reps for the company declined to offer any additional comment.