UPDATE: This seems to be a case of Twitter “shadow banning, me” which I’ll try to fix. In the meantime, if you’re on Twitter you can fix it, according to reader Jack, by adusting your Twitter settings:
To remove them I had to change settings under the Safety section of twitter.
unchecked: Hide sensitive content
checked: Display media that may contain sensitive content
But Lory, “sensitive comments” don’t include turtle pictures and birthday wishes!
_______________________
I got this email from a reader, and another one like it:
For two days now, every tweet you’ve posted has been censored in my feed. It says, “This tweet is not available because it includes potentially sensitive content.” I’m wondering whether others are experiencing this issue. Perhaps your enemies have been flagging your tweets as offensive?
I don’t see this on my feed, but perhaps others do. Could you weigh in below, giving the country where you live? The feed is here.
Thanks!
Works fine for me: Canada
If you don’t see it then it’s possibly shadow banning. Scott Adams has complained of it. The idea is to not show you that your feed is being restricted, deceptively. Twitter denies they do this. And yet it happens….
I can see your tweets (UK).
I can as well, 50 miles down the road from Coel, assuming he’s still at Keele. But, almost all posts have the ‘sensitive material’ warning. I get a lot of them, as I follow a lot of Syria/Iraq people. Maybe it’s more to do with my feed than your posts?
Update, my twitter account that follows Jerry shows the tweets fine.
Using a separate twitter account that does not follow Jerry shows the tweets as censored.
I am getting the message (in the US) “This media may contain sensitive material. Your media settings are configured to warn you when media may be sensitive.” This includes such potentially offensive material as Grania’s birthday cupcake/cat and reader’s wildlife photos.
Forgot to mention that if I click on “View” they open fine.
Same here (Brazil) – censored but can click to view. They even flagged Roger Moore, cats friendly with dogs, and a turtle. Now that’s real snowflake country!
Same here in Switzerland – it’s not exactly censored, just a warning (in french).
I am seeing it, only on recent posts. Michigan.
Works fine for me in Canada when I’m logged in. When I am not logged in, I get this message regarding your attachment. The link to the post is still available:
https://imgur.com/a/yznM4
From the USA, no redacted or filtered tweets here. I arrived at this post from the tweet link.
Correction: I am now seeing the notices.
To remove them I had to change settings under the Safety section of twitter.
unchecked: Hide sensitive content
checked: Display media that may contain sensitive content
I can confirm that these settings do the trick (from Germany)
So far no censorship – NYC, USA
I get trigger warnings (sensitive material), but I can click to view. US
I’m getting a warning about sensitive material, so I have to specifically ask to view. So far the sensitive material consists of a young looking Roger Moore and a kitten holding a cake.
Forgot to say UK
I can see your tweets just fine (Vermont, US)
See the tweets, but with sensitive material warning – USA
Heading from Philly to DC for your lecture tonight!
Malaga, Spain. Nothing unusual here.
I’m on holiday bang in the middle of Malaga right now!
I can see them, not that I spend any time on Twitter.
The last 7 tweets with images have “sensitive content” warnings that prevent the image from showing until you click.
Oddly, it only shows the warning if I’m not logged in. When I’m logged in, I don’t see the warning, even though I do have the “sensitive content” warnings enabled in my settings.
(California)
There are multiple settings under “privacy and safety”. I have “hide sensitive tweets” checked under “search”, but I also have “Display media that may contain sensitive content” checked under “Tweet media”, so that’s why I don’t see the warnings when logged in.
You may want to check your settings and make sure you don’t have the settings enabled for “mark media you tweet as sensitive”.
I am currently seeing your tweets OK in the UK, but I have seen exactly the effects that you and others are describing affecting other people’s tweets and accounts. It appears to be Twitter’s euphemistically named “Shadow Banning” censorship mechanism in action.
I’m getting warnings for almost every post – but I can view them if I click
I can view your tw**ts in Bristol.
Starting with the “My lunch in Washington…” tweet, there is a notice that says “This media may contain sensitive material. Learn more View”. It appears on all tweets since that one.
Sent while traveling from Marion VA.
Exactly the same pattern here.
I have no twitter account, and I’m in Canada. (Also behind a web proxy, for what that’s worth.)
Hmmm… I take that back. I can see the tweets, but on some posts, I get a warning (This media may contain sensitive material. Your media settings are configured to warn you when media may be sensitive.) And I changed my media settings, but still get the warnings. Not much rhyme or reason about what the warnings are for. I get a warning about your lunch in Washington!
No problems for me (Germany).
I get the “sensitive material” warning :
“Your tweet media settings are configured to inform you when media may be sensitive”
…including the post with the photo of the turtle and the one about Roger Moore!
I can see your tweets as well (I’m in NYC).
I get the message “This media may contain sensitive material. Your media settings are configured to warn you when media may be sensitive.” but am able to see the posts when I click on “View”. I am in the UK.
I get the ‘sensitive material’ warning, and can click to view (US, California). However, I do not see this warning on your older posts, beginning with “Emergency Kittens”. The first occurrence I see of the warning is on the “My Lunch in Washington” post 20 hours ago.
All fine here – UK
If you follow Mr. Coyne, I don’t think it shows as “sensitive”. However, if you open an incongnito window and go to https://twitter.com/Evolutionistrue most of his tweets are censored.
Does for me. I’m following him as of five minutes ago and I see the message. However, if I click through to my media settings I see two settings: one to hide sensitive media and one to display sensitive media. I had to turn off the “hide sensitive media” and turn on “display sensitive media”.
Visible, but with the statement “This media may contain sensitive material. Your media settings are configured to warn you when media may be sensitive.” San Jose, California
Shouldn’t those settings be “show insensitive content”? Or should they have two options so you can see/not see either senstive and “insensitive” content? 😉
I’m seeing the tweets but I need to click to view the accompanying images which have the warning “This media may contain sensitive material. Your media settings are configured to warn you when media may be sensitive.”
The earliest instance of a tweet containing sensitive material is the link to Teresa May’s scrap of the iovry trade ban – it does contain a rather graphic image. Next one is “My Lunch in Washington”, and then most later tweets. From that I conclude it’s the Vegetarian Agenda at work!
The severed elephant was a bit strong. I rt’ed it.
I was reported once before on Google+ for that image in another article by a snowflake that felt the horrific death of a beautiful creature was less significant than his personal sensibilities in seeing an icky photo. He had the audacity to tell me not to post anything like that again, him being the king of the internet and all. I had words. They were… unkind.
To be honest, I would have appreciated an advance warning from PCC about that shocking, horrific picture.
I am getting the “sensitive material” notice starting with your Washington lunch tweet. I am able to click on everything though. Ottawa, Ontario
I see your tweet on your feed but I can’t find anything from you on my own
I saw that yesterday Jerry, I live in Liverpool England.
I have to press view in order to see them. I guess twi**er thinks pictures of cats are sensitive. Even the bots are now regressive. We’re doomed.
Your twitter feed is fine in Cape Town, SA.
I just noticed this a few minutes ago. Is twitter marking you as sensitive because you have a site about evolution? Or evolution in your title? Or because you dare critique the regressive left? I am seeing this on a lot of tweets on my feed lately. And it’s nothing that deserves getting labeled “sensitive material.”
OK in UK.
For a while emergency kittens on Twitter was flagged as containing potentially unsuitable content.
Most annoying.
I am from Portugal and i confirm that we see (in Portuguese), a warning in your tweets regarding “material sensível” or “Sensitive material”. Really it’s amazing the things i have read about this kind of “sensitivity” in American Universitys (i’m afraid it’s spreading worldwide). But as we say here: too much free time doing nothing, otherwise i’m not sure if people would have time to spend with so much nonsense. By the way, i am a big fan of your site(not blog as you say), and thank you so much for your racionality/logic. It’s refreshing.
I haven’t yet received a warning about the “sensitivity” of your articles and responses but I do not access them through Twitter.
(From OR)
Seen in Delaware, OH
Dangit, my Snowflake setting was turned on by default. All fixed.
You don’t have to be a snowflake to lose your lunch over an image of a decapitated elephant.
I suspect based on the timing that as others have mention it was the elephant picture which caused WEIT to be listed as an account that tweets sensitive images. It’s rare you tweet such things but images like that are why I have my account intentionally set to warn me about such images.
I wanted to add I’m not suggesting you shouldn’t share such images, just pointing out that the system is designed to warn people of them.
Do you make anti-regressive posts? They’ve been shadow-banning anti-regressives for a couple years now. I’m not surprised.
The tweets are flagged as containing sensitive content, but will open if you click on them.
I’m in the US.
Your tweets were flagged as sensitive until I changed the settings as described in the original post. Now I can see them, and to my surprise, there’s nothing particularly sensitive about them.
unchecked: Hide sensitive content
checked: Display media that may contain sensitive content
They’re censored. People using the iOS twitter app are told they need to change their settings, which they can’t do in the app.
My experience as well. In the US
I’m in the UK and my warning on your feed is “This media may contain sensitive material. Your media settings are configured to warn you when media may be sensitive”
Been on a Tw!77#r diet for a couple months – liking it. No more palpitations.
I’ve had no changes here. I’m in Canada and use Tweetbot to follow WEIT and other accounts
Jerry, you may have accidentally censored yourself with the setting “Mark media you Tweet as containing material that may be sensitive”. (which is adjacent to the “Display media that may contain sensitive content” setting.
Or maybe some of these settings were recently reset to a default, perhaps due to a glitch.
I am pretty sure I used to have “Display media that may contain sensitive content” checked, but it was unset as of a couple days ago.
Viewing your feed from a browser in the Netherlands, not logged in:
I see your tweets, the text is visible, but any pictures come flagged with the ‘sensitive media’ tag, next to which is a view button and I can view them fine.
That’s what centralized services will do to you. Better use free decentralized alternatives like Diaspora, Mastodon, or many more alternatives.
Of course, there is the catch-22 of breaking quasi-monopolies, but as a steadfast Twitter and Facebook boycotter I think it’s worth trying.
It seems ok over here in Brazil.
Australia. I get the warnings but changing the settings fixes it.
Others have addressed this. Twitter “protected” me from your posts, so I changed the sensitivity settings. Why they thought these tweets would offend anyone is unfathomable.
From Australia everything since the deer and cat posting on May 23rd says “this posting may contain sensitive material”
Welcome to Europe 2.0. EU and UK are actively pursuing legislation to hold media accountable for ‘improper content’ posted by users.
And NOT just things like bomb making hints. but ‘fake news’ (as determined by algorithm or even government , much like they manage the subservient mainstream media) but even things that ‘might cause unrest’, which of course could be anything critical of the current political or social policy.
Meanwhile, Evan Williams, co founder of Twitter, has grovelled and apologized for giving free speech to the masses. “I thought it would be a good thing, ” he said, “but I was wrong”
Like the Great Internet Wall of China, we will have a similar thing in place for Europe. And it might affect us too, EU is demanding, for example that Google and others GLOBALLY remove items under their ‘right to be forgotten’ rules, NOT just in EU facing servers. If a company has presence in EU (most all do) they are under threat.
I can see them in the UK