The Twitter username for Lin Wood (@LLinWood), one of the defense lawyers for Kyle Rittenhouse, has been shadowbanned from Twitter’s search results which means users that aren’t already following Wood are unable to search for specific keywords that Wood mentions in his tweets.
Twitter Shadowban Test, a tool that detects various types of Twitter shadowbans, shows that @LLinWood’s username isn’t appearing in Twitter search for users who aren’t already following the account.
Manual searches for both “@LLinWood” and “LLinWood” confirm the shadowban and return no results.
Twitter’s search function is often used to find a user’s tweets about specific topics. For example, those following the Rittenhouse case may want to search for tweets from Wood containing the keyword “Rittenhouse” in order to see all his statements on the case.
But because Wood is shadowbanned, Twitter users are unable to perform this search or any other granular searches of Wood’s tweets unless they’ve already found Wood’s account and followed it.
Wood responded to the shadowban by tweeting: “Jack & Twitter cannot help themselves. They keep dropping evidence in our lap that will ultimately lead to their destruction. Thanks, Jack & Twitter! Keep up the good work!”
Twitter made shadowbanning part of its terms of service at the start of the year and the practice can cause a drastic reduction in the reach of a user, their tweets, and the total engagements that they receive.
Pop culture satirical news account Price of Reason documented the impact of having one of its viral tweets shadowbanned in June. In the first four hours, before the tweet was shadowbanned, it had over 9,000 engagements and 174,000 impressions and topped Twitter’s search results. But in the next four, after it was shadowbanned, its new engagements and impressions dropped by more than 90%.
The shadowbanning of Wood is the latest of many examples of Rittenhouse and his defense team having their statements and accounts censored by Big Tech companies and large corporations.
Rittenhouse’s defense team has been using Twitter and other social media platforms to advocate and fundraise for Rittenhouse and defend him against murder charges that were brought after he shot two men who were pursuing him in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
But in addition to Wood’s tweets being shadowbanned from Twitter search, both Wood and Rittenhouse’s lead defense lawyer John Pierce have been locked out of their Twitter accounts after advocating for their client.
Facebook and payments company Discover have also blocked a fundraising campaign for Rittenhouse’s legal defense on the Christian crowdfunding site GiveSendGo with Facebook blocking links to the campaign and Discover blocking donations to the campaign.
Additionally, Facebook has scrubbed Rittenhouse’s name from search, branded the Kenosha shooting “mass murder,” removed statements of support from Rittenhouse, and threatened to ban conservative author and media analyst Mark Dice after he posted a video showing Rittenhouse offering help to protesters.
Crowdfunding platform GoFundMe has also shut down a fundraiser for Rittenhouse’s legal defense that was set up by his father while amplifying the campaigns of those who were shot in Kenosha.
Outside of the Big Tech censorship, cancel culture has also resulted in a governor being fired, district attorney facing calls to resign, a school board chairman being pressured to resign and a police officer being investigated after posting about Rittenhouse online.
