Twitter 'Shadow Bans' Compared to Elon Musk's Plan to 'Deboost' Posts

Former New York Times columnist Bari Weiss on Thursday night posted a controversial thread about Twitter's so-called secret blacklists.

Some have since pointed to the post as evidence of Twitter having "shadow banned" certain users. But others argue that CEO Elon Musk has essentially vowed to do the same thing but under a different name: "deboosting."

Twitter has long denied conservatives' claims that the social media platform shadow bans users purely based on their political ideology. Musk, who acquired Twitter for $44 billion this past fall, has claimed that the site will be a bastion for free speech under his reign.

Part two of what's come to be known as the "Twitter Files" included more internal communications posted by journalists working with Musk, who has pointed to the drops as proof that his predecessors were censorship-happy.

Weiss's post featured photos of certain accounts that the social media platform had allegedly worked to stifle. For instance, the account of conservative talk show host Dan Bongino was apparently given a "search blacklist" tag at some point, while activist Charlie Kirk's account was seemingly labeled "do not amplify."

Weiss's tweets come on the heels of another Twitter Files thread by journalist Matt Taibbi, which shined a light onto the platform's reported decision to squelch a 2020 New York Post story about Hunter Biden's laptop.

Meanwhile, Weiss's reporting homed in on former Twitter employees who apparently launched "secret blacklists," which were given the title "Visibility Filter" (VF).

"[Twitter] used VF to block searches of individual users; to limit the scope of a particular tweet's discoverability; to block select users' posts from ever appearing on the 'trending' page; and from inclusion in hashtag searches," tweeted Weiss, who also founded The Free Press, an independent media company.

Musk himself appeared to weigh in on the debate following Weiss's thread, tweeting on Thursday night: "Twitter is working on a software update that will show your true account status, so you know clearly if you've been shadowbanned, the reason why and how to appeal."

However, Weiss's thread has also attracted flak. One critic pressed Weiss to spell out the difference between "secret blacklists" and some of Musk's own proposals.

"How do these features differ from what Musk is proposing in his 'deboost' and 'demonetize' lists?" replied product developer Tom Coates, attaching a November 18 post from Musk.

Musk's tweet from last month stated: "New Twitter policy is freedom of speech, but not freedom of reach. Negative/hate tweets will be max deboosted & demonetized, so no ads or other revenue to Twitter. You won't find the tweet unless you specifically seek it out, which is no different from rest of Internet."

Other Twitter users have pointed out that the social media giant has long been transparent about limiting certain content. Journalist Ashley Feinberg responded to Weiss's tweet about such alleged censorship being done "in secret."

"[T]his has literally been on twitter's help page since at least 2018," Feinberg wrote, along with a screenshot of a rule about limiting "abusive and spammy behavior."

Writer Mig Greengard then quote-tweeted Feinberg's post, adding: "Of more interest ongoing, is the Musk team saying they won't use such 'secret lists' to deboost objectionable [shrugging emoji] posts and accounts? Because he already said he would. No doubt in my mind that many people and topics have been targeted already."

Newsweek reached out to Twitter for comment.