Musk says Twitter working on software update that will let users know if they are ‘shadow-banned’

Elon Musk said that Twitter is working on a software update that will letusers know if their account has been “shadow-banned”, the reason for it and how to appeal.Twitter is "working on a software update that will show your true account status, so you know clearly if you’ve been shadow-banned, the reason why and how to appeal (sic)," Musktweeted on Friday.

Shadow-banned is a practice that typically makes posts invisible to other users or makes a user’s profile hard to find without your knowledge.

The topic rose to prominence after a report in 2018 that Twitter secretly shadow-bans Republicans—a claim denied by the firm's co-founder and then-CEO Jack Dorsey.

Recently, Instagram also rolled out a similar feature with its latest update, letting user’s know if they are blocked from recommendations.

The announcement made by Musk comes hours after the second instalment of Twitter Files was released, in which it came to the fore that the employees of the microblogging site used the "Visibility Filtering" tool, which is just another term for shadow-banning, on some users, who identify themselves as conservatives or right-leaning.

In this second part, journalist Bari Weiss revealed that "teams of Twitter employees build blacklists, prevent disfavoured tweets from trending, and actively limit the visibility of entire accounts or even trending topics—all in secret, without informing users."

Among the accounts that were shadow-banned include popular right-wing talk show host Dan Bongino, conservative activistCharlie Kirk, and Stanford professor Dr Jay Bhattacharya, who expressed doubts about feasibility of the COVID-19 lockdown.

It comes amidst the exodus of advertisers who have been fleeing the platform since Musk took over due to concerns over policy changes and the reinstatement of banned accounts.

(With inputs from agencies)

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