Twitter Ads Rejects Tweets for “Hateful Content”

Press Release

Yesterday Twitter rejected four Center for Immigration Studies tweets for use in the Center’s Twitter Ads campaign, alleging hateful content. (Several others were approved.) All four tweets use the statutory phrases “illegal alien” or “criminal alien”, and all of the tweets referenced law enforcement, either at the border or in the interior. One of the tweets contained a powerful Daily Caller video showing illegal aliens in camouflage carrying large backpacks across the border unimpeded.

A new video from the @DailyCaller showing illegal aliens pouring across the border reminds us why we need a wall.

Technologies and adequate manpower are well and good, but the best defense is always to prevent individuals from entering in the first place.https://t.co/wfWInr9RWf

— Center for Immigration Studies (@CIS_org) September 10, 2018

Twitter’s only response to an inquiry about why promotion of the tweets was rejected: “We’ve reviewed your tweets and confirmed that it is ineligible to participate in the Twitter Ads program at this time based on our Hateful Content policy. Violating content includes, but is not limited to, that which is hate speech or advocacy against a protected group.”

Organizations of all kinds pay Twitter to promote specific tweets in order to drive traffic to an organization’s website. Twitter advertises that the ads “can get you more likes, amplify your message, and get more people talking about the things that matter to you most – your cause, project, business, or brand.” This is exactly why the Center selected these specific tweets to be placed as ads.

At a July congressional hearing on social media filtering practices, House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte said that social media platforms need to “do a better job explaining how they make decisions to filter content and the rationale for why they do so.”

We agree.

You judge: Do these tweets illustrate “hateful content”, or is Twitter filtering content with a political bias?

ICE recently completed a massive multi-state enforcement operation targeting criminal aliens that resulted in the arrests of 364 individuals. Of those, 187 (51%) had prior criminal convictions and 97 had been previously removed from the United States.https://t.co/PSWsBNlmCU

— Center for Immigration Studies (@CIS_org) September 6, 2018

A couple in Oregon was recently killed by a drunk-driving Mexican illegal alien.

Now, with the state’s sanctuary law being put up to a ballot, the sanctuary law’s defenders say the other side is “seizing upon” illegal alien crime.

Isn’t that the point?https://t.co/lScfW32pUm

— Center for Immigration Studies (@CIS_org) September 10, 2018

The farm which employed the illegal alien who killed Mollie Tibbetts was raided by ICE agents.

ICE should do more of this– continue to focus on employers of illegal aliens who commit serious crimes. Often, those arrests lead to many more aliens found.https://t.co/Ht0vHneeIo

— Center for Immigration Studies (@CIS_org) September 11, 2018