Twitter Shadowban: Does it Actually Exists?

by Harshita Agrawal

Does Twitter shadowban? Well, Twitter says it doesn’t! It clearly says it has nothing to do with a shadowban.

We do not shadowban. You are always able to see the tweets from accounts you follow (although you may have to do more work to find them, like go directly to their profile). And we certainly don’t shadowban based on political viewpoints or ideology.
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But, the Twitteratis think that Twitter is clearly shadowbanning accounts and tweets and they don’t like it. Before we enter into the debate, let’s start with what’s a Twitter shadowban.

What is a Twitter Shadowban?

Twitter shadowban is when as a Twitter user you can post tweets, read your tweets, but others don’t see your account or your tweets. Basically, your content is undiscoverable to others while everything seems normal to you. Sometimes, only a fragment of your data is not seen by others, for example, your replies on a particular tweet or certain conversation threads. A few times your profile is not shown when anyone is searching up for your Twitter account. So, a Twitter shadowban is any part of your Twitter account not being seen to some or all of other Twitter users.

Now, the above definition is not the bookish definition of a Twitter shadowban (because it’s not an accepted fact yet) but it’s close to what people on Twitter experience.

How to Check if you’re Shadowbanned on Twitter:

  • Check your Account from some other Twitter accounts:

If you feel that you’re shadowbanned by Twitter as you do not get the same engagement on your posts as before then the simplest thing would be to check from someone else’s account and see if your content is seen.

You should be checking your Twitter account from those who follow you and also from those who don’t. Sometimes, you’re shadowbanned in a way that your tweets can be seen by your followers but not by those who don’t follow you.

  • Use any free Twitter Shadowban Tester online:

There are many free Twitter shadowban testers available online that you can use to check if Twitter has shadowbanned your account. A simple Google search will give you a list of free Twitter shadowban testing sites.

Using any of the methods above, you can learn if you’ve been shadowbanned by Twitter or not.

If any of the methods above have shown that your account is actually shadowbanned, then it’s important to learn what could have caused it.
Let’s look at some of the reasons why Twitter might have shadowbanned your account/tweets/threads.

How to not be Shadowbanned by Twitter:

Twitter, when it says it doesn’t shadowban, also has a but, where they do say, that they do down rank bad-faith actors.

Tweets from bad-faith actors who intend to manipulate or divide the conversation should be ranked lower
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Now, if you’re wondering who are bad-faith actors, then this is what Twitter thinks about them:

There have also been many instances of Twitter users belonging to specific political groups noticing that they have been shadowbanned by Twitter. Again, the reason could be #2 point of Twitter’s bad-faith actors wherein Twitter bans a certain group of people for inappropriate behavior/ unhealthy conversations on Twitter.

Last Words:

As Twitter bots are responsible for how Twitter is been managed, there could be a chance that sometimes people who are doing everything by the books are also shadowbanned by Twitter.

In such cases, the best approach would be to reach out to Twitter and see if there’s an internal bug causing it.

If you’re sure Twitter has been shadowbanning your content and you are also aware of the issue, then you might look into it before Twitter bans your account.