Donald Trump entered a contentious battle over online censorship on Thursday, blasting privately-owned Twitter for allegedly depressing the exposure of messages from its conservaitve users.

'Twitter “SHADOW BANNING” prominent Republicans. Not good' the president boomed, ironically on his globally unmissable Twitter account.

'We will look into this discriminatory and illegal practice at once! Many complaints.'

It's unclear what the administration could do to challenge Twitter for sorting content and delivering it selectively to users based on a computer algorithm.

It's also not obvious what law Trump believes the platform's management might be violating.

Donald Trump entered a contentious battle over online censorship on Thursday, blasting Twitter for allegedly depressing the exposure of messages from conservaitves

The president said Twitter's 'behavioral ranking' system 'discriminaotry and illegal' but didn't say what law the social media giant might be breaking

But much of the social media right-wing is up in arms over what they see as a biased protocol that regulraly disadvantages them in the marketplace of ideas.

And Trump isn't the only powerful Republican to push back.

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarty tweeted on Wednesday that '[s]ocial media is being rigged to censor conservatives.'

'It’s time to rise up and demand accountability from Big Tech. WE WILL NOT BE SILENCED. #StopTheBias,' he wrote.

The president's tweet followed a widely discussed VICE News story dissecting Twitter's automated system that fills in names based on the first few typed characters in a search box.

Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel doesn't show up the way her adversaries' do, despite her unusual first name.

Several conservative Republican congressmen have the same problem, as well as Donald Trump Jr.'s spokesman Andrew Surabian.

Donald Trump Jr. weighed in after his father, saying Twitter is marginalizing conservative business owners along with prominent commentators

The majority leader of the U.S. House of Representatives put the shadowbanning issue on the map Wednesday following a deep-dive report from VICE News

A Twitter spokesman told the news outlet that its algorithm 'is based on account *behavior* not the content of Tweets.' He didn't say how 'behavior' online is evaluated, or what McDaniel and others may have done to downgrade their Twitter exposure.

Twitter said flatly on Thursday that 'we do not "shadowban"' but acknowledged that it uses 'behavioral ranking' to sift through tweets and decide what floats to the top.

'To be clear, our behavioral ranking doesn't make judgments based on political views or the substance of Tweets,' the spokesman said.

Republican Reps. Mark Meadows, Jim Jordan and Matt Gaetz – three members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus – have also been ensnared.

'It is curious that these allegations would arise the week following Congressman Gaetz’s heated exchange with Twitter senior executives before the House Judiciary Committee,' a Gaetz spokesman told VICE.

Other right-wingers in Congress, including Iowa Rep. Steve King, don't seem to be affected.

Donald Trump Jr's spokesman lashed out at Twitter, mimicking the president's earlier threats against Iranian President Hassan Rouhani

In an April hearing convened by the House Judiciary Committee, ranking Democrat Jerrold Nadler said the notion of social media companies censoring conservatives is a 'hoax' and a 'tired narrative of imagined victimhood.'

Donald Trump Jr. disagrees.

He tweeted Thursday morning: 'I can’t tell you the number of small accounts and small business social accounts that have said they’re getting hit by these bans simply for being conservative leaning.'

Surabian riffed on the subject using the same allcaps stype Trump employed earlier in the week in a digital attack on Iran's president.

'NEVER, EVER SHADOWBAN REPUBLICANS AGAIN OR YOU WILL SUFFER CONSEQUENCES THE LIKES OF WHICH FEW THROUGHOUT HISTORY HAVE EVER SUFFERED BEFORE. WE ARE NO LONGER A COUNTRY THAT WILL STAND FOR YOUR CENSORSHIP. BE CAUTIOUS!' he tweeted.

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey tweeted Wednesday that his company acknowledges problems with 'our conversational health work, specifically the perception of “shadowbanning” based on content or ideology.'

'It suffices to say we have a lot more work to do to earn people’s trust on how we work,' he wrote.