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A side question for folks who work on these sorts of social media / UGC sites. Wouldn't a shadowban / deletion of messages be a lot less antagonistic as a way o

A side question for folks who work on these sorts of social media / UGC sites. Wouldn't a shadowban / deletion of messages be a lot less antagonistic as a way of dealing with problematic posts instead of instant and total account ban? I mean, if Reddit can shadowban so that your account still works, even if the posts go into the "ether", why can't Twitter do this? Instaban seems a bit... harsh, even if merited? Couldn't you combine shadowban with account ban if there's a persistent set of violation posts? Is there a practical reason why shadowbanning on twitter doesn't work? I mean if we're going to use fairly simple approaches (keywords on ban lists or user-based flagging / reporting), then shouldn't step one simply be not allowing the post at all, instead of a retroactive instaban on the account after the post has been shared? To me, the simple way is delete the post, or put in a hold queue (warning the user), or at very least not actually share the post on a timeline. Warn the user, don't share the post, and/or delete the post. Then you can still have the desired effect of keeping the platform "safe". Am I missing something? I'm confused all around about social media practices, honestly.

bilkow 4y ago
A shadowban is IMO worse than an instaban, you still aren't able to post anything, but it will look like you can. It also feels morally wrong to shadowban people and there's no process to appeal, it's not even straightforward to discover you've been shadowbanned, you need a bot or searching for your posts in a private window[0]. Agree on the "simple way" of warning the user and putting the post on a queue though. [0] https://nerdschalk.com/am-i-shadowbanned-on-reddit/ https://nerdschalk.com/am-i-shadowbanned-on-reddit/
- tablespoon 4y ago
  > A shadowban is IMO worse than an instaban, you still aren't able to post anything, but it will look like you can. It also feels morally wrong to shadowban people and there's no process to appeal, it's not even straightforward to discover you've been shadowbanned, you need a bot or searching for your posts in a private window[0]. I think that's true on a first offense. But if the user has demonstrated they have no intent to behave or their offense is egregious or demonstrates they know what they're doing, then I don't think there's any problem with a shadowban.

bilkow 4y ago

A shadowban is IMO worse than an instaban, you still aren't able to post anything, but it will look like you can. It also feels morally wrong to shadowban people and there's no process to appeal, it's not even straightforward to discover you've been shadowbanned, you need a bot or searching for your posts in a private window[0]. Agree on the "simple way" of warning the user and putting the post on a queue though. [0] https://nerdschalk.com/am-i-shadowbanned-on-reddit/ https://nerdschalk.com/am-i-shadowbanned-on-reddit/

tablespoon 4y ago
> A shadowban is IMO worse than an instaban, you still aren't able to post anything, but it will look like you can. It also feels morally wrong to shadowban people and there's no process to appeal, it's not even straightforward to discover you've been shadowbanned, you need a bot or searching for your posts in a private window[0]. I think that's true on a first offense. But if the user has demonstrated they have no intent to behave or their offense is egregious or demonstrates they know what they're doing, then I don't think there's any problem with a shadowban.