A new investigation details the practice of “shadow bans” known internally as “visibility filtering”
© Twitter / bariweiss
Twitter has created a series of barriers and tools for moderators to prevent specific tweets and entire topics from trending, or limit the visibility of entire accounts, according to internal correspondence and interviews with multiple high-level sources within the company.
Despite repeated public assurances by top Twitter officials that the company does not “shadow ban” users, especially not “based on political viewpoints or ideology,” the practice actually existed under the euphemism of “visibility filtering,” according to journalist Bari Weiss, who published the second installment of the so-called ‘Twitter Files’ in a lengthy thread on Thursday night.
“Think about visibility filtering as being a way for us to suppress what people see to different levels. It’s a very powerful tool,” one senior Twitter employee said, while another admitted that “normal people do not know how much we do.”
The Twitter Files, Part Deux!! 🍿🍿 https://t.co/bH9UiTSEK2
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 9, 2022
Twitter moderators have the power to add the user to categories such as “Trends Blacklist,” “Search Blacklist” and “Do Not Amplify,” to limit the scope of a particular tweet or entire account’s discoverability – all without users’ knowledge or any warning.
However, above the common moderators was another “secret group” that handled issues concerning “high follower,” “controversial” and other notable users. Known as “Site Integrity Policy, Policy Escalation Support,” the team included high-level executives such as former Head of Legal, Policy, and Trust, Vijaya Gadde, the Global Head of Trust and Safety, Yoel Roth and CEOs Jack Dorsey and Parag Agrawal.
