What can users do about shadowbanning? – The Conversation

Tech platforms use recommender algorithms to control societys key resource: attention. With these algorithms they can quietly demote or hide certain content instead of just blocking or deleting it. This opaque practice is called shadowbanning.

While platforms will often deny they engage in shadowbanning, theres plenty of evidence its well and truly present. And its a problematic form of content moderation that desperately needs oversight.

Simply put, shadowbanning is when a platform reduces the visibility of content without alerting the user. The content may still be potentially accessed, but with conditions on how it circulates.

It may no longer appear as a recommendation, in a search result, in a news feed, or in other users content queues. One example would be burying a comment underneath many others.

The term shadowbanning first appeared in 2001, when it referred to making posts invisible to everyone except the poster in an online forum. Todays version of it (where content is demoted through algorithms) is much more nuanced.

Shadowbans are distinct from other moderation approaches in a number of ways. They are:

Platforms such as Instagram, Facebook and Twitter generally deny performing shadowbans, but typically do so by referring to the original 2001 understanding of it.

When shadowbanning has been reported, platforms have explained this away by citing technical glitches, users failure to create engaging content, or as a matter of chance through black-box algorithms.

That said, most platforms will admit to visibility reduction or demotion of content. And thats still shadowbanning as the term is now used.

In 2018, Facebook and Instagram became the first major platforms to admit they algorithmically reduced user engagement with borderline content which in Meta CEO Mark Zuckerbergs words included sensationalist and provocative content.

YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn and TikTok have since announced similar strategies to deal with sensitive content.

In one survey of 1,006 social media users, 9.2% reported they had been shadowbanned. Of these 8.1% were on Facebook, 4.1% on Twitter, 3.8% on Instagram, 3.2% on TikTok, 1.3% on Discord, 1% on Tumblr and less than 1% on YouTube, Twitch, Reddit, NextDoor, Pinterest, Snapchat and LinkedIn.

Further evidence for shadowbanning comes from surveys, interviews, internal whistle-blowers, information leaks, investigative journalism and empirical analyses by researchers.

Experts think shadowbanning by platforms likely increased in response to criticism of big techs inadequate handling of misinformation. Over time moderation has become an increasingly politicised issue, and shadowbanning offers an easy way out.

The goal is to mitigate content thats lawful but awful. This content trades under different names across platforms, whether its dubbed borderline, sensitive, harmful, undesirable or objectionable.

Through shadowbanning, platforms can dodge accountability and avoid outcries over censorship. At the same time, they still benefit financially from shadowbanned content thats perpetually sought out.

Recent studies have found between 3% and 6.2% of sampled Twitter accounts had been shadowbanned at least once.

The research identified specific characteristics that increased the likelihood of posts or accounts being shadowbanned:

On Twitter, having a verified account (a blue checkmark) reduced the chances of being shadowbanned.

Of particular concern is evidence that shadowbanning disproportionately targets people in marginalised groups. In 2020 TikTok had to apologise for marginalising the black community through its Black Lives Matter filter. In 2021, TikTok users reported that using the word Black in their bio page would lead to their content being flagged as inappropriate. And in February 2022, keywords related to the LGBTQ+ movement were found to be shadowbanned.

Overall, Black, LQBTQ+ and Republican users report more frequent and harsher content moderation across Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and TikTok.

Detecting shadowbanning is difficult. However, there are some ways you can try to figure out if it has happened to you:

rank the performance of the content in question against your normal engagement levels if a certain post has greatly under-performed for no obvious reason, it may have been shadowbanned

ask others to use their accounts to search for your content but keep in mind if theyre a friend or follower they may still be able to see your shadowbanned content, whereas other users may not

benchmark your contents reach against content from others who have comparable engagement for instance, a black content creator can compare their TikTok views to those of a white creator with a similar following

refer to shadowban detection tools available for different platforms such as Reddit (r/CommentRemovalChecker) or Twitter (hisubway).

Read more: Deplatforming online extremists reduces their followers but there's a price

Shadowbans last for varying amounts of time depending on the demoted content and platform. On TikTok, theyre said to last about two weeks. If your account or content is shadowbanned, there arent many options to immediately reverse this.

But some strategies can help reduce the chance of it happening, as researchers have found. One is to self-censor. For instance, users may avoid ethnic identification labels such as AsianWomen.

Users can also experiment with external tools that estimate the likelihood of content being flagged, and then manipulate the content so its less likely to be picked up by algorithms. If certain terms are likely to be flagged, theyll use phonetically similar alternatives, like S-E-G-G-S instead of sex.

Shadowbanning impairs the free exchange of ideas and excludes minorities. It can be exploited by trolls falsely flagging content. It can cause financial harm to users trying to monetise content. It can even trigger emotional distress through isolation.

As a first step, we need to demand transparency from platforms on their shadowbanning policies and enforcement. This practice has potentially severe ramifications for individuals and society. To fix it, well need to scrutinise it with the thoroughness it deserves.

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What can users do about shadowbanning? - The Conversation

Shadow Definition & Meaning – Merriam-Webster

1

: the dark figure cast upon a surface by a body intercepting the rays from a source of light

2

: partial darkness or obscurity within a part of space from which rays from a source of light are cut off by an interposed opaque body

3

4

: an attenuated form or a vestigial remnant

5

: an inseparable companion or follower

6

: pervasive and dominant influence

7

9

: shelter from danger or observation

10

: an imperfect and faint representation

13

: a source of gloom or unhappiness

14

: a state of ignominy or obscurity

transitive verb

1

2

: to accompany and observe especially in a professional setting

3

6

obsolete : to shelter from the sun

1

2

Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced searchad free!

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Shadow Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster

Those Schools Banning Access To Generative AI ChatGPT Are Not Going To Move The Needle And Are Missing The Boat, Says AI Ethics And AI Law – Forbes

Those Schools Banning Access To Generative AI ChatGPT Are Not Going To Move The Needle And Are Missing The Boat, Says AI Ethics And AI Law  Forbes

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Those Schools Banning Access To Generative AI ChatGPT Are Not Going To Move The Needle And Are Missing The Boat, Says AI Ethics And AI Law - Forbes

Michael Jordan was 3-inches short of wearing pants: His Airness Nearly Aced Signature Par-3 at Shadow Creek But His Baggy Pants Stole the Show – The…

Michael Jordan was 3-inches short of wearing pants: His Airness Nearly Aced Signature Par-3 at Shadow Creek But His Baggy Pants Stole the Show  The Sportsrush

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Michael Jordan was 3-inches short of wearing pants: His Airness Nearly Aced Signature Par-3 at Shadow Creek But His Baggy Pants Stole the Show - The...

Twitter shadow banning wink, wink a real thing after all

OPINION:

My, my, my. The latest in a string of intriguing files released by Twitter CEO Elon Musk through a couple of select journalists shows that shadow banning was real, it was targeted and it was frequent, and that conservatives were the ones normally caught in the crossfire.

Well, well, well. Sunshine shines at last.

Maybe this should be subtitled, More Questions Congress Must Demand Vijaya Gadde Answer, Twitters former legal eagle and leading denier of shadow-banning that is to say, of censoring.

And it is censoring thats occurred at the company.

Twitter long ago shed its status as a private company, with a right to stifle or amplify whatever voices its executives wanted. Its clear politicians particularly Democrats held massive influence over the content of posts on the platform. That moots the companys Section 230 protections. That puts the company under the umbrella of the First Amendment.

As Fox News wrote, Twitter suppressed stories based on requests from both Dems and GOP in 2020, but it favored liberals.

Thats cause most of Twitters employees leaned left and liked Democrats more than Republicans. The bubble brought the echo chamber.

From journalist Bari Weiss, one of Musks go-to for Twitter Files investigation: Twitter once had a mission to give everyone the power to create and share ideas and information instantly, without barriers. Along the way, barriers nevertheless were erected.

Like what?

Like how?

Take, for example, Stanfords Dr. Jay Bhattacharya (@DrJBattacharya) who argued that Covid lockdowns would harm children, Weiss tweeted. Twitter secretly placed him on a Trends Blacklist, which prevented his tweets from trending.

Thats not all.

Conservative talk radio host Dan Bongino was slapped with a Search Blacklist, Weiss tweeted.

Thats not all.

Twitter set the account of conservative activist Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) to Do Not Amplify, Weiss tweeted.

But oh contraire, Twitter told us for so many years, both during congressional hearings and on its own company website.

Setting the record straight on shadow banning, Gadde, along with Twitters product lead executive, Kayvon Beykpour, wrote in a July 2018 blog post. People are asking us if we shadow ban. We do not. But lets start with, what is shadow banning?

Then came the definition the purposeful, deliberate making of someones content undiscoverable, yada yada, we know the definition already, thank you. Then came the additional denial.

We do not shadow ban, Gadde and Beykpour wrote.

Former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said similarly during testimony before Congress in September of 2018.

From Rep. Mike Doyle, a Democrat from Pennsylvania, to Dorsey:, as Fox News reported: Social media is being rigged to censor conservatives. Is that true of Twitter?

Dorsey, in answer to Doyle: No.

Doyle to Dorsey: Are you censoring people?

Dorsey to Doyle: No.

Doyle to Dorsey: Twitters shadow banning prominent Republicans is that true?

Dorsey to Doyle: No.

Now fast-forward to today.

Turns out, its not called shadow banning. Its called visibility filtering.

Think about visibility filtering as being a way for us to suppress what people see to different levels. Its a very powerful tool, one senior Twitter employee told us, Weiss tweeted.

Another revelation: VF refers to Twitters control over user visibility. It used VF to block searches of individual users; to limit the scope of a particular tweets discoverability; to block select users posts from ever appearing on the trending page; and from inclusion in hashtag searches, Weiss tweeted.

And this: All without users knowledge.

Musk, once again, is on the move.

As he quickly exited top influencers of Twitter policy like Hunter Biden laptop cover-upper James Baker; like Gadde so, too, hes quickly taking action to restore free speech to his social media platform.

Twitter is working on a software update that will show your true account status, so you know clearly if youve been shadow banned, the reason why and how to appeal, Musk tweeted.

Republicans are getting in the game, as well. Now that the GOP is slated to control the House, several in the party say theyre going to haul in former Twitter executives namely, Gadde, Baker and Yoel Roth, former site integrity chief to account for their roles in suppressing information regarding President Biden and his family prior to an American election, CNN reported.

All good.

All warranted.

Truth brings reconciliation, Musk tweeted.

It does.

But for many on the left, unfortunately, reconciliation is not the end game. For far too long, Democrats have enjoyed the favor of their water carriers in media and social media favor that has allowed them to shut out voices of opposition and criticism and pretend as if their leftist views are shared by vast majorities. Thats coming to an end. Twitter is falling to freedom.

Just dont expect the left to let it fall without a fight.

As the White House said, when Musk first started opening Twitter doors to sunshine, Democrats are keeping a close eye on Twitter. Thats a clear indication that leftists are already plotting their next path of subterfuge. Maybe its a new committee to root out hate; maybe its a new commission to stop the anti-Semitism, or stifle the violence, or put a cease and desist to so-deemed dangerous rhetoric; maybe its a new policy or piece of legislation or proposal with some tame-sounding, sane-sounding name. Whatever its called, what it will be is censorship.

Todays Democrats, more like Marxists than pro-American patriots, will stop at nothing to stop free speech.

Cheryl Chumley can be reached atcchumley@washingtontimes.comor on Twitter, @ckchumley. Listen to her podcast Bold and Blunt byclicking HERE. And never miss her column; subscribe to her newsletter and podcast byclicking HERE. Her latest book, Lockdown: The Socialist Plan To Take Away Your Freedom, is available byclicking HEREorclicking HEREorCLICKING HERE.

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Twitter shadow banning wink, wink a real thing after all