Gadgetory

the claims are frightening Republicans are being shadow banned from Twitter President Trump is tweeting that this is discriminatory and illegal cue the internet outraged so what exactly is shadow banning it sounds like nonsense from a science-fiction show guys Steve's been shadow banned by a demagogue in in upside-down for anyone who is not in the mix with the angry side of social media this whole concept must sound bizarre but there is a real thing called shadow banning and unlike with Trump is claiming it is not happening to Republicans on Twitter let's break it down shadow banning has been around for a long time on the Internet it goes way back before Twitter or Facebook we're talking the ye olde web forum days let's say you were in an online discussion and a bad user got in the mix maybe throwing around spammy links or violating the rules and just being an unwanted troll an admin could make it so no one else will see that users future posts it's like turning the user into a ghost but they don't know they're dead and maybe they'll get the point that their unwanted when everyone stops interacting with them or they'll just get bored and bother someone else so why not just tell a user they are kicked off because maybe they'll get mad and make another account to continue the bad behavior Shadow bannings stuck around as the internet grew up it was read its only form of banning for years until 2015 Facebook has its own twist on the concept if a page is sharing hoaxes and misinformation the network said it would rather demote the posts so fewer people will see them but it won't totally ban the page so what is happening over at Twitter now this all got messy when a vice news post claimed a few Republican Twitter accounts were shadow banned but it wasn't true you could always see the users post the tweets were not banned nothing was hidden the thing that got folks upset had to do with Twitter search function if you went to type in these accounts in the search bar their names were not being suggested in an autocomplete an example would be if you type in Donal that's gonna autosuggest Donald Trump or other popular Donald's wait someone's name wasn't showing up in a search suggestion bar automatically it must be a conspiracy to silence right-wing voices sorry it's much less sensational Twitter says it was a bug back in May Twitter changed his search so that it wouldn't give high recommendations to accounts with signs of negative behavior so if an account is getting muted blocked and reported often well the system may have flagged it as a problematic account Twitter's head of product said these behavior signals were causing those names to not appear in search and it is being fixed Twitter said it had nothing to do with political views or the substance of the tweets now when it comes to if shadow banning is illegal well I have some inside information on this are you ready okay listen up social networks can ban whoever they want so be good on the Internet kids thanks for watching hopefully that sheds some light on shadow banning share your thoughts about it in the comments and let us know if you have concerns about the practice be sure to LIKE and subscribe and hit that bell to never miss a breakdown the next time someone tweets about something that gets everyone whipped up into a conspiracy craze until next time