7 ms·
This is not a shadow ban. A shadow ban is when it appears to you that you are not banned, but from others perspective you are.
by supermatt 4y ago
This is not a shadow ban. A shadow ban is when it appears to you that you are not banned, but from others perspective you are.
- tasuki 4y agoYes. Unfortunately people increasingly use "shadow ban" to just mean "ban", perhaps it sounds cool?
- cactusplant7374 4y agoElon wants to redefine the term as well but for the purpose of a coordinated witch hunt. People like using shadow ban because it sounds more malicious vs. content that is no longer actively promoted by a company. It's hard to claim you're a victim if the reason is you're just not that interesting or popular.
- extheat 4y agoWell if you are silently placed on a hide list (by manual human intervention without you being able to know without a third party), then by all means that is a shadow ban. Edit for clarity.
- causality0 4y ago"Shadow ban" would be a good term to use for that if it didn't already have a meaning that was different. But it does.
- extheat 4y agoHence why I said silently. If I’m posting something and it appears to me as usual on my feed but not others, by all means that’s a shadow ban.
- InspiredIdiot 4y agoNope. Still wrong. I understand there is some way it feels like that from your perspective but DDG and Bing don't own your feed. So they are hiding nothing from you. They are 100% ~up-front~ (edit) consistent about not choosing to show your site (ban it) and the fact that they don't control your feed doesn't make it any more accurate to apply the word "shadow" to their ban.
- InspiredIdiot 4y agoI have become what I hate most. Someone who didn't read the article. I've heard too many instances of the term being misapplied and jumped to a conclusion based on the discussion. If you use Bing webmaster tools (a logged-in account for the use of the domain owner/content creator) and you can see indications that Bing indexed the content and no indications that errors preventing it from being eligible to show then it is certainly at least closer to a shadow ban than I originally thought. Still, any reference to a "feed" entirely misses the point unless Bing is the one also serving that feed. I can't see any evidence that Bing displays a feed to the poster.
- colanderman 4y agoNo, a shadow ban specifically is designed to mislead you into thinking you are not banned, to delay you attempting to work around the ban. Regardless of whether you were notified, if you can see that you are banned, it is by definition not a shadow ban.
- rvnx 4y agoIn this case, a shadow ban would mean that if the owner of this website searched for his site on Bing/DDG, it would appear normally to him, but would be hidden from everyone else.
- ilyt 4y agoThat would be silent ban (if you're not getting informend that you are, or reason for it), or just plain ban. Shadow ban is explicity "pretend to user they are not banned, but don't show it to everyone else" Like say getting shadow banned on reddit or HN, you will see your stuff when you're logged in, but anonymous or other people wont. Search equivalent would be you getting your own site when you're searching but nobody else does
- paulcole 4y agoHe’s kinda Trump-esque in his willingness to just redefine words (and basically pretend the original use never existed) to his own benefit and have his followers jump on board. Another great Elon example of this is Tesla’s “Autopilot.”
- jimmygrapes 4y agoI really don't think the willingness to refine words willy-nilly is a behavior I would associate first with Trump or Elon. Using the wrong word and insisting it means the same thing, maybe, but certainly not redefining words.
- philippejara 4y agoTrump-esque? what words has trump even done that for? Changing the meaning of words to fit what you want has been happening long before the printing press even was invented by people in power, vying for power, reporting on things they have a biased interest in or just wanting a quick win on an argument. Not everything needs to be a trump analogy.
- ceejayoz 4y agoTrump popularized the term “fake news”, generally meaning “real news I don’t like”.
- ryandrake 4y agoPeople forget: for a very, very brief moment during the 2016 US presidential campaign, the problem of actual "fake news" was in the spotlight. Literal fake news, where a pseudo-news site would put up stories that was entirely fictional, to promote a political POV, and present them as news. Trump swiftly neutralized the term by co-opting it and using it, as you say, to mean "real news I don't like". But for just a moment in time, it was originally used to describe actual fiction posing as news.
- NreItardGGERS 4y ago
- ilyt 4y agoThere is difference between "content that is no longer actively promoted by a company" and "the company explicitly put your content on a no-show list". Sure, it's not shadow banning but "just" stealth banning (as you're still not informed that you got banned, or reason for it), but banning nonetheless
- cactusplant7374 4y agoIs it even a ban? Your followers can still see it. People that don't follow that go to your profile can still see it. Elon says no one has the right to "freedom of reach" but never describes this concept as a ban.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- Jensson 4y agoIf you get delisted from search and don't show up on exact match searches then I'd say that they banned you in some way. That is what Twitter does and what Bing did here. We call what Twitter does "shadow ban" since they still show you to yourself, to people subscribing to you and people with a direct link, but nobody else can find you, it isn't a total shadow ban but they are doing something very similar to a shadow ban. What shall we call that instead, "bubble ban", since it is like a shadow ban for specific bubbles and for everyone else it is as if that bubble never existed on the site?
- michaelmrose 4y agoThere is no such thing as a total or less than total shadow ban. If you are visible with anyone with a direct link you aren't shadow banned it Bubble ban is also poor verbiage because not appearing in anyone's feed or search results is the default condition not inherently a punishment or redaction. A search is inherently a selection process and it's perfectly valid to say some content isn't fit to appear anywhere in a listing. I like reddits choice of "quarantined"
- NreItardGGERS 4y ago[dead]
- dack 4y agoWhen you first hear a term used, I think it's natural for people just try to figure out what it means in context without looking up the official definition (I've caught myself doing this subconsciously before). Imo a logical interpretation of "shadow ban" would be when you are banned but they didn't tell you they banned you, and regular "ban" is when they tell you you were banned. It makes enough sense that people don't think they need to look it up to confirm. edit: funny enough, I did double-check the wikipedia page to make sure my understanding was correct, but upon reading further it does acknowledge the expanding of the definition: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_banning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_banning
- edgyquant 4y agoThis… this is not a logical interpretation of shadow ban, at best it’s a random guess. Interpretation implies some understanding of the data
- garfij 4y agoWhat makes "invisible to everyone but you" a more "logical" interpretation of "shadow ban" than "banned but didn't tell you"? Are shadows invisible to everyone but you?
- gardenhedge 4y agoWhen a user is (normal) banned, they are normally told and their access/ability is restricted. When a user is shadow banned they are normally not told they are banned and are still able to access and perform functions. I think this secrecy is where the word "shadow" comes in. The user is in the dark about the ban...
- edgyquant 4y agoI didn’t say they were (though I think so.) I said it wasn’t the more obvious “logical” interpretation.
- rspoerri 4y agoShadow banning is when they are doing extra steps to prevent you from realizing that you are banned. Usually giving you the impression of a working service, while everybody else will not be able to see your contributions. Banning is just stopping the service for you, wether they tell you actively or not depends ob the service. No search service is actively informing you about the usage of your data, neigther are they telling you they stopped servicing you.
- rapnie 4y agoIs there also a term for being algorithmically suppressed on a social media platform, I wonder? I.e. a much more subtle, harder to dectect mechanism whereby the algorithms ensure you get some exposure, but never the same as other unsuppressed people would get based on similar activity. Or only exposure to a certain limited subset of the graph based on some metrics (e.g. just your 'friends' so no one points out you are effectively shadow banned).
- Marazan 4y agoYes, its called Algorithmic Supression. That doesn't sound as cool and victimey though.
- spoiler 4y agoHow about Algorithmic Oppression
- jokowueu 4y agoAlgoOped
- cactusplant7374 4y agoIf the algorithm is actually a true measure of engagement or usefulness of your site is it just plain 'ol search engine justice?
- rapnie 4y agoCould call it a RoboBlock in popular language, with reference to a roadblock. An obstruction to engage enforced by our machine overlords. Or better maybe, a RoboGag.
- colanderman 4y ago"Automatically downranked/downweighted/penalized" are terms I've heard.
- hutzlibu 4y agoI think unlike in the case here, (soft) shadow banning would be appropriate to describe it, even though not 100% technical correct.
- ffhhj 4y agoThe author is extending the concept to include an inadverted ban. Why would Bing warn him anyways, since there is no user account? Welcome to Cancelbannia.
- seanhunter 4y agoIndeed. Some people seem to be trying to make it apply any time the top result of an algorithmic ranking isn't what they think it should be (eg if they have been deboosted rather than shadow banned).
- Dylan16807 4y agoI think being banned from search could be part of a shadow ban, but when the entire service is search that's just a ban.
- mkl 4y agoIf it was a shadow ban he would see his site when he searched but we wouldn't. This is definitely not that.
- Dylan16807 4y agoAre you talking about normal sites? Not search engines? If so I don't really agree. I don't think you have to go through that much effort as part of implementing a shadow ban. If posts show up to the user in most places, then good enough it's a shadow ban. Only because this is a search engine do I say this solidly isn't a shadow ban.
- mkl 4y agoWell, I don't understand the distinction you're making, as search doesn't seem special here to me. The key feature that makes something a shadow ban is that everything looks normal to the shadow-banned person, but the rest of us don't see their stuff or see it in some restricted way. That seems like it would apply equally to search, forum comments, etc.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- JadoJodo 4y agoI suspect OP used it in the way that “I believe all my posts are showing up in the places that they should, but unbeknownst to me, they are being suppressed.” In this instance, I could see a “search engine shadowban” being an appropriate moniker.
- InspiredIdiot 4y agoI think a good test of whether this application of the term makes any sense is: Could any search engine ban ever not be a shadow ban? We already have a term: ban. Let's just use that one and stop conflating things and being unnecessary imprecise and incendiary. It helps certain parties' (edit plural possessive) agenda but does not help us clearly communicate.
- Eleison23 4y ago[dead]
- travisgriggs 4y agoClearly we need a new term. I nominate Ghost Banned or Ghostdexed
- stephencanon 4y agoOutdexed, clearly.
- zxcvbn4038 4y agoCheck with Stanford first, “ghost” might be offensive to the living impaired. =P
- _8j50 4y agoThat is what is happening, you think you are not showing up because bad SEO or better results. You have to find out through experimentatiom that you are restricted. The moderator didn't let you know that they have taken punitive action against you.
- supermatt 4y agoThat would just be a ban. You dont need to be told you are banned.