Twitter lit up Friday night with allegations that it tried to suppress news that secret-leaking website Wikileaks exposed thousands of emails obtained from the servers of the Democratic National Committee.
Friday afternoon, users noted, "#DNCLeaks" was trending, with more than 250,000 tweets about it on the platform. By Friday evening, it vanished completely from the site's "trending" bar for at least 20 minutes. It returned as "#DNCLeak" after users erupted, though it was too late to quell their rage.
#DNCLeaks was trending #1. @twitter pulls it from the list completely, gets called on it, then replaces it with #DNCleak to cover themselves
— Gabe (@gacman0) July 23, 2016
Meanwhile, #wikileaks released 20k DNC emails and #DNCLeaks abruptly stops trending on Twitter but nothing to see here, right?
— Marzipan Wiley (@marzipanwiley) July 23, 2016
.@Twitters @google actions tonight by trying to stop @wikileaks #DNCLeaks #DNCLeak is a prime reason We need MONEY out of POLITICS
— Fearless Genius (@NewYorks_Own) July 23, 2016
My time stamped screenshot How did #DNCLeaks vanish? Fyi: I write romance novels :-) but care about media pic.twitter.com/CfwoBYxMjK
— Kate Kisset (@KateKisset) July 23, 2016
Don't normally tweet political things, but why would @twitter pull the #DNCleaks from trending at #1. Sounds like censorship to me. #DNCleak
— David Hurth (@DavidHurth) July 23, 2016
TWITTER HAS REMOVED #DNCLeaks & #DNCLeak from trends!!! There goes our 1st Amendment Rights!
— Narciso Urquiola (@Coney70s) July 23, 2016
"Don't normally tweet political things, but why would @twitter pull the #DNCleaks from trending at #1. Sounds like censorship to me," said one. "Twitter is still trying to censor this trend! Now #DNCleak is trending instead of original #DNCLeaks! Keep talking guys, expose corruption," said another.
This happened just days after conservative media personality Milo Yiannopoulos was banned from the site over allegations that he had harassed a black actress over her role in a new Ghostbusters movie.
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The banning took place just minutes before Yiannopoulos was scheduled to hold a "Gays for Trump" rally at the Republican National Convention, leading to allegations that Twitter was acting out of political bias.
UPDATE: In a message on Twitter, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said in response to the allegation, "False," though users were quick to express their skepticism.