If you weren’t around last night, you missed one of the funnier happenings on Twitter in its history.

First, accounts like Joe Biden’s and Barack Obama’s were hacked, with messages being sent out asking for people to send them bitcoin payments that they would supposedly double. After that, all the blue-checkmark accounts had their accounts locked for over an hour. This led to hilarious postings such as this.

To all the bluechecks watching in silent horror as we take back what is ours:

You should move to a small town, somewhere the rule of law still exists. You will not survive here.

You are not a wolf, and this is a land of wolves now

— Comfortably Smug (@ComfortablySmug) July 15, 2020

THIS IS GOD'S WILL

FOR YEARS THE BLUECHECKS HAVE JAILED AND OPPRESSED MY PEOPLE

TODAY THEY LEARN HOW IT FEELS

— Comfortably Smug (@ComfortablySmug) July 15, 2020

Without the bluechecks, I haven't seen a single bad take on here

Everything is good now

— Comfortably Smug (@ComfortablySmug) July 15, 2020

Pro-tip: If you aren’t following @ComfortablySmug, you are missing out on a lot of quality content. His promotions and narrations of Trump’s pressers are gold.

Regardless, the hack apparently revealed more than just the fact that they are terrible at security. And to be clear, they are really, really terrible at security.

Hackers Convinced Twitter Employee to Hijack Accounts for Them – VICE https://t.co/q2JGIdvhgQ

— Tammy Bruce (@HeyTammyBruce) July 16, 2020

What was also revealed were images of Twitter’s top-secret admin panel. What was on there? The ability to shadow-ban and trend-ban, both things conservatives have suspected existed for years despite the denials from Twitter itself.

UPDATE: Twitter is now removing and deleting images of the admin control panel from its website. pic.twitter.com/ljrpvvmNQz

— Mike Coudrey (@MichaelCoudrey) July 16, 2020

Ever wonder why certain topics that are very hot on Twitter don’t make the trends list or are at the bottom? This is obviously why. Twitter employees have the direct ability to blacklist certain trends. That’s not exactly big news. What is more newsworthy is their ability to search ban, which is simply another way of saying shadow-ban.

Twitter has long denied that they shadow-ban, including writing a blog on it two years ago. They pointedly said they do not shadow-ban, yet what else would you call banning someone from being searchable? Twitter has been lying to everyone this whole time and it’s why they are now desperately deleting pictures that provide the evidence.

In the end, Twitter can do what it wants I suppose, but they should stop gaslighting people about how they run their operation. They absolutely shadow-ban and they absolutely throttle content based on political ideology. I’ve personally been “reply deboosted” many times by Twitter. That’s their more subtle way of making sure no one sees your posts. When it happens, I just quit posting because engagement goes down to almost zero.

This is why things like VIP are important to RedState. Yes, we still provide you with the same (and probably more compared to when VIP was introduced) great free content. But eventually, we are going to be driven from the platforms that drive traffic and ad revenue. It’s just a matter of time. Your support is far more important than you may realize.