Daily Stormer The Most Censored Publication in History
On March 22, I wrote:
Twitter has, quite brilliantly, changed the way deleted tweets appear as embeds on websites.
Now, any deleted tweet that has been embedded looks like this:
You’ll notice: this is the same thing that a tweet looks like when it’s loading. So if someone goes to a page and sees deleted embeds like this, they will recognize this as the “loading look” and when the tweets don’t load, they will just assume there was some failure to load, not realizing the tweet has been deleted.
Apparently, I wasn’t the only one offended by the ridiculously deceptive nature of this.
Twitter has reverted this policy of making it look like a deleted tweet is just stuck loading, and will go back to the old method of making it obvious that the tweet has been deleted.
Twitter has confirmed it reversed a change that altered the appearance of deleted tweets embedded on websites outside of Twitter (thanks to @RuinDig on Twitter for pointing this out). Instead of leaving a blank gap in place of the deleted tweets, the site will go back to displaying the tweet’s original text.
“After considering the feedback we heard, we’re rolling back this change for now while we explore different options,” Twitter spokesperson Remi Duhé said in an emailed statement to The Verge. “We appreciate those who shared their points of view — your feedback helps us make Twitter better.”
If you head to any third-party webpage with an embedded tweet (like this one from The Verge), you’ll see that you can once again see the tweet’s original text, date, and the name of the user who posted it. Judging by Twitter’s response, it looks like this reversal is only temporary while the company figures out an alternate way to display deleted tweets on websites. It’s unclear what kind of “different options” Twitter might try out, but, hopefully, it won’t involve completely blocking out any information associated with the tweet.
The Verge doesn’t mention the obvious fact that this was purposefully intended to be deceptive by making people think the tweet just wasn’t loading. A deleted tweet looked exactly the same as a tweet that was just in the process of loading, so someone would think it was just stuck loading due to some connection or server issue.
As I noted, hiding the fact that you are censoring people is really worse than censoring people. Censoring your own censorship is like, double censorship.
Internet companies are trying to create an entirely fake reality, where no one even knows that anyone disagrees with the official narrative of the government.
I suspect that Twitter’s next “solution” will make it so you can’t see any information about the tweet, but abandon the deceptive practice of making people think it is just stuck loading.
Maybe the fantasy will come true, and Elon Musk will save Twitter.
But you know – I doubt it.
