Social media hive mind: How Twitter 'throttles' content that disagrees with their political views

Scott Adams
Scott Adams Blog
Sat, 04 Feb 2017 15:57 UTC

You might have clicked on my misleading tweet to get to this page. I had to disguise the content so Twitter wouldn't throttle it.

Here's why...

This morning I tweeted a link to a great video that describes in detail how Twitter "throttles" the tweets of any content that disagrees with their political views. The video describes how Twitter gives a fake message that some tweets are no longer available, to discourage you from clicking to them. The tweets still exist, and you can access them by directly clicking the links in the tweets, but most people would not think to do that.

If you don't think that's a real thing, here's my tweet about the video. They did it to me. And this is common for my tweets about Trump or climate science. They throttle me to prevent them from going viral. And it only happens with certain types of content.

And it isn't just me.

I would argue that the human mind has recently evolved to include the thinking process of social media as a whole. We're connected to social media like a great hive mind. And thanks to scientific advances in datametrics, the social media companies now have almost perfect mind control technology. We connect to the hive mind, the social media giants decide who sees what messages, and they program us individually. You get different persuasion than I do.

I no longer have freedom of expression in the way that most of you still do because the social media platforms throttle my ideas. And you know why this isn't the biggest story in the world?

LOOK OVER THERE! IT'S HITLER!

That's the hive mind distracting you. Here's the video Twitter didn't want you to see.

By the way, I don't think Twitter or any other social media platform have evil intent. But apparently they think I do. That's a big perceptual problem.

Update: The misleading tweet that brought many of you to this page skirted Twitter's throttle filter.

Comment:

Reader Comments

Mr Meowgi · 2017-02-05T01:34:28Z

I don't know the exact wording off the top of my head but LJK, Laura said " There is a program for everyone. " And she meant that in a literal sense. She said that quite a few years back as well. That is more true today than ever. I am not a big social media fan because I see the Hive/ Zombie mind it promotes. My wife showed me a post on friend face ( Facebook ) that said remember when facebook was about connecting with friends new and old. How true.

atari2u · 2017-02-05T12:00:26Z

I noticed this throttling when i used to comment on the WaPo website.

Their legion of censors monitor every comment, and delete ones they disagree with.

The most devious part is that the comments are left on the site, its just no one sees them except you, no one else can see or comment on them.

This sandboxing of certain comments can proceed to sandboxing all a certain persons comments, and you would have no idea, unless you had a friend who could tell you if the comments were visible.

Needless to say, when i found out, i immediately deleted my account with them and have never gone back.

Some of the animals are more equal than others.

stardust · 2017-02-06T18:14:15Z

Social media : I begin to remember with nostalgia when my mother had guests in the house, at least you could talk face to face with a person, not hide behind a computer screen and "fire" at anyone with impunity.

Not to mention that my mother outdid herself in cooking. I love the digital age. Nothing but trouble.