Texas Governor Greg Abbott: Twitter ‘Erecting Challenges’ to American Institutions

Texas Governor Greg Abbott holds a roundtable discussion with victims, family, and friends
Drew Anthony Smith/Getty Images

Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R) recently claimed that his Twitter post about the Blue Angels flight demonstration team was censored, prompting him to question the possibility of Twitter regulation. Gov.  Abbott added that he believes “Twitter is erecting challenges for conservatives and for American institutions.”

Gov. Greg Abbott recently took to Twitter to claim that a post he made about the Navy flight demonstration team, the Blue Angels, was censored by Twitter. Abbott claims that multiple people told him the post was labeled as “sensitive” by Twitter, hiding it from followers timelines.

“I’ve always loved watching the Blue Angels. They inspire the precision and power that makes the U.S. military the mightiest in the history of the world,” Abbot wrote in a retweet of a video of the flight team posted by a user named Terri Green.

Readers may be able to see that the video is censored with a warning page stating “we automatically hide video that might contain sensitive content.” Abbot stated that this is “just another way Twitter is erecting challenges for conservatives and for American institutions,” and added that his office is calling Twitter officials to meet with him.

“Greater regulation of Twiter is on the table,” Abbott stated in the tweet. This isn’t the first time that Twitter has censored conservative content on its platform. In September of 2018, Breitbart News’ Robert Kraychick reported that Twitter had banned a number of advertisements relating to illegal immigration.

Krayching wrote at the time that: “Twitter rejected four advertisements from the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) on the basis of the tweets containing “hateful content” on Tuesday. The hateful content in question appears to be the phrase “illegal alien.” The platform later reversed the decision, calling it an ‘error.'”

In July of 2018, Breitbart News reported that tech website Gizmodo had finally noticed the censorship of conservative figures, writing:

“In what appears to be new ranking behavior, Gizmodo has identified several prominent far-right accounts now buried by Twitter’s search feature,” the site claimed. “As an unintended side effect of demoting divisive figures, many of the dropdown results now show fake accounts.”

Some examples of accounts which have been censored include author and journalist Mike Cernovich, author and YouTuber Stefan Molyneux, InfoWars Editor-at-Large Paul Joseph Watson, Gateway Pundit founder Jim Hoft, and commentator Laura Loomer.

The President vowed to investigate Twitter for the practice of “shadowbanning” in July of 2018 also. “Not good. We will look into this discriminatory and illegal practice at once!” Trump wrote on Twitter. “Many complaints.”

Twitter crashed recently shortly before aWhite House summit on social media was set to take place. Users attempting to access the website were greeted with the message seen below, stating “Something is technically wrong.” The site assured users that it was “going to fix it up and have things back to normal soon.”

 

Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or email him at lnolan@breitbart.com

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