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Honestly, this talk of Twitter “shadowbanning” strikes me as full on conspiracy theory. “I’m shadowbanned! No one can see my tweets!” gets retweeted 10k times.

Honestly, this talk of Twitter “shadowbanning” strikes me as full on conspiracy theory. “I’m shadowbanned! No one can see my tweets!” gets retweeted 10k times. I don’t even follow these people, and it shows up in my TL. I think this is performance.

SlowRobotAhead 8y ago
Um... You should probably look at how their "Quality Filter" is shaddowbanning without actually removing tweets. The short version is unless you follow that person already, you won't see them organically in any feeds. They could #JonathonKoren and you won't see it because they are effectively hidden unless you already followed them. What Twitter is doing is absolutely political censorship. EDIT: There are tools to detect the "Quality Filter" there is a hidden cam interview with an engineer from Twitter explaining it. Hardly conspiracy theory. I don't know why it doesn't seem to be an issue for you, or anything about your anecdote of not seeing it.
- jonathankoren 8y ago
  This doesn’t sound like a shadow ban at all. It’s a term that actually means something.[0] This is just people whining that they don’t have a high enough quality score. I’d take this a lot more seriously if this wasn’t being peddled by same folks that complain about “conservative purges” when Twitter bans a bunch of obvious bot accounts. What makes this a conspiracy theory is the assumption of some grand covert political agenda. That’s really really hard to believe. Twitter is infamous for not enforcing their own TOS when it comes to hate speech or even calls for violence. While I’ve never worked at Twitter, I’ve seen how fringe groups start spreading rumors of dark political agendas when it comes to these sorts of algorithms. It just doesn’t happen. It’s just spreading false outrage for clicks. It’s bullshit sold to people desperate for validation of their unpopular ideas. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_banning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_banning

SlowRobotAhead 8y ago

Um... You should probably look at how their "Quality Filter" is shaddowbanning without actually removing tweets. The short version is unless you follow that person already, you won't see them organically in any feeds. They could #JonathonKoren and you won't see it because they are effectively hidden unless you already followed them. What Twitter is doing is absolutely political censorship. EDIT: There are tools to detect the "Quality Filter" there is a hidden cam interview with an engineer from Twitter explaining it. Hardly conspiracy theory. I don't know why it doesn't seem to be an issue for you, or anything about your anecdote of not seeing it.

jonathankoren 8y ago
This doesn’t sound like a shadow ban at all. It’s a term that actually means something.[0] This is just people whining that they don’t have a high enough quality score. I’d take this a lot more seriously if this wasn’t being peddled by same folks that complain about “conservative purges” when Twitter bans a bunch of obvious bot accounts. What makes this a conspiracy theory is the assumption of some grand covert political agenda. That’s really really hard to believe. Twitter is infamous for not enforcing their own TOS when it comes to hate speech or even calls for violence. While I’ve never worked at Twitter, I’ve seen how fringe groups start spreading rumors of dark political agendas when it comes to these sorts of algorithms. It just doesn’t happen. It’s just spreading false outrage for clicks. It’s bullshit sold to people desperate for validation of their unpopular ideas. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_banning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_banning