The controversy originated with a Vice News article Wednesday that claimed Twitter was "shadow banning" notable Republican accounts by limiting their appearance in its automatically populating search suggestions.
Among those purportedly affected by the practice included Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel, Freedom Caucus Reps. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., and Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and a spokesperson for Donald Trump Jr., according to the Vice piece.
The president responded to the report - incidentally, on Twitter - Thursday, writing that the situation was "not good."
"We will look into this discriminatory and illegal practice at once!" Trump tweeted. "Many complaints."
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
Twitter argued in a response to Vice that the issue was not a matter of political bias but rather the result of policies that target account behavior, rather than content.
Twitter directed VICE to a blog post the company published in May which outlined several steps it was taking to crack down on troll-like behaviour on Twitter.
Today we are introducing new behavior-based signals into how Tweets are organized and presented in areas like conversations and search.
— Twitter Safety (@TwitterSafety) May 15, 2018
This is to improve the health of the conversation and improve everyone’s Twitter experience.
However, Twitter has since issued a statement categorically denying that it shadow bans people on its platform.
It said the many accounts were not showing up in auto-completed search results was due to a wide-ranging issue on the platform.
"Hundreds of thousands of accounts were impacted by this issue. This impact was not limited to a certain political affiliation or geography. And, to be clear, these accounts were only impacted within search auto-suggestions – they still appeared in search results. This issue has now been resolved," said Twitter.
Twitter added that certain Democrats were also not showing up within search auto-suggestions as result of this issue.
"Most accounts affected had nothing to do with politics at all," said Twitter.
