There’s a meme floating around that’s less about trying to be funny and more about being informatively mimetic. It’s an image featuring an ominous image of Russian President Vladimir Putin with the words “Don’t let Russia Interfere in 2020” next to the image with the hashtag #DemandVoterID at the bottom. This image has been accompanied by tweets with matching phrases and the hashtag, and people have been getting their accounts locked.
The hashtag is designed to raise awareness about vote restrictions in 2020 for only those with a registered voter identification card, you can see what the meme looks like with the tweet below from Optimised Optimist, which hasn’t been locked… yet.
Clean election next year! Demand voter ID #DemandVoterID pic.twitter.com/xPQfUzhGEG
— Optimised Optimist (@OptimisedOptimi) August 3, 2019
If the account does get locked following the publication of this article, you can view the meme below.
Even though the image is quite innocuous and actually encourages people to get informed and demand stricter regulations on voting to avoid the kind of interference and manipulation that Google utilized during the 2016 and 2018 elections; or dead people voting, like what happened in Chicago;; or the people being bused in to vote, as admitted to by the Board of Elections Commissioner; Twitter decided to start locking accounts for sharing similar images with similar messages.
The meme has been floating around since late July, and after July 30th, 2019 Twitter began locking accounts that were sharing the meme.
Twitter is disabling accounts that demand voter ID for spreading fake news. Cause I guess not wanting foreign interference is bad now right? pic.twitter.com/XYVa72RZ5Q
— Sam41Gaming (@Sam41gaming) July 31, 2019
The typical Centrists™ will try to bury the news by saying that the above scenario was a one-off case and that no censorship is taking place, it’s just “Twitter enforcing their rules!”.
However, this is not an isolated case, and others have also shared images of accounts being suspended or locked for sharing the meme demanding voter ID for the 2020 elections.
On August 1st, 2019 other users also posted images of accounts being suspended, with Robert Bowen sharing the following image.
TWITTER IS BANNING FOLKS
WHO DEMAND VOTER I.D.This is worth a look.
Twitter is banning people for saying we should demand voter ID.
We damn well should, and Twitter’s reaction proves they not only intend to sway the election, they intend to steal it pic.twitter.com/zus1Cq9eHG— robert bowen (@wbowen333) August 1, 2019
If you’re unable to read the image, Twitter is claiming that the meme is a violation of their rules regarding voting. Specifically it states…
“Violating our rules against posting misleading information about voting.
“You may not post content providing false information about voting or registering to vote.”
In some cases you don’t even need to have anything in the tweet other than “DemandVoterID” and the image of the meme for it to trigger a suspension from Twitter, as evident by Gaming Patriot TV’s tweet.
Happened to me as well … suspended within seconds, insane // Twitter Locks Accounts For Demanding Voter ID For 2020 Elections https://t.co/pa9oGFGRqs via @OneAngryGamerHD pic.twitter.com/TNjlhmXijq
— Tim (@GamingPatriotTV) August 4, 2019
Left-wing journalists are already trying to spin the news that deplatforming and censorship is a “conspiracy theory”, but funnily enough users are posting the actual facts and evidence that they are indeed being silenced for demanding voter ID for the 2020 elections.
Conspiracy huh? My other account was banned within seconds for 12 hours simply for posting a meme with the hashtag Demand Voter ID. pic.twitter.com/PKg1xkz2Tb
— catalyst317 (@Catalyst317) August 1, 2019
This led gamer designer Mark Kern to test it for himself, and deduced how Twitter is targeting the meme to lock and suspend accounts. He also decided to test it out himself using a burner account, and sure enough the account was locked shortly after posting the meme demanding voter ID for the 2020 elections.
UPDATE: Looks like you can post links to image sites that host the memes. You can also vary the image a bit and get past the system. This means there isn’t a front end AI doing this, but some simple image matching system (hash). But I expect learning AI to be added later.
— Mark Kern (@Grummz) August 3, 2019
Update 4: I just tried this myself on a burner account several years old. I was locked immediately. This is happening. It’s not a trademark issue (image was trademark free), it is meme banning. pic.twitter.com/YDnLaAJit5
— Mark Kern (@Grummz) August 3, 2019
Over on Gab.com users have also been testing it, and they, too, have noted that it only takes seconds for an account to be locked after posting the meme.
Multiple people have confirmed that the meme is indeed resulting in locked accounts.
This is all an attempt by big tech to rig the 2020 elections.
A Google executive was already caught on camera admitting that they would be rigging the 2020 elections, which spawned a meeting at the White House and President Donald Trump saying they would have meetings about it and seek regulatory solutions, but we’re already past the halfway point of 2019 and nothing has been done. Stochastic platitudes and posturing won’t be enough to stop the activists once 2020 gets here.
It’s quite obvious that Twitter, Google, and Facebook are intent on following through with their plan, and while politicians like Tulsi Gabbard and Josh Hawley have paid lip service and made some effort to put in the legwork to get some kind of action taken against big tech, it doesn’t look like it will be enough to deter the Silicon Valley giants from their intended goal.
(Thanks for the news tip Plake Filmmaker)
