Talk:Shadow banning
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Conspiracy theory
editAfter getting access to the article, the Moore ref (Moore, Elaine (13 March 2022). "The truth about 'shadowbanning' is more complicated than influencers think". Financial Times. Retrieved 12 June 2022.) appears to be an opinion piece. I've removed it. It might be helpful to look at the history of it's use in this article.
The "Controversies" section as a whole needs revisiting. There's more than just the 2018 jump in interest to cover, and even that part doesn't appear to be covered neutrally. - Hipal (talk) 18:01, 15 November 2025 (UTC)
- "Conspiracy Theories" may not be accurate to describe algorithmic shadowbanning accusations.
- This is due to algorithmic shadowbans possibly occurring with no explicit intention. This would be more accurately described as possible negligence than a pconspiracy.
- In this source Twitter is quoted "We do not shadow ban."[1] This does not exclude algorithmic shadow bans. Earlier in the article, it claims, "Twitter also had a bug that caused some accounts to not be auto-suggested in search results even when people were searching for their names." The article also alleges that Twitter admitted to the bug when they fixed it. This is by definition, algorithmic shadowbanning.
- Maybe split the section into conspiracy and negligence accusations. ~2026-31039-22 (talk) 10:54, 24 May 2026 (UTC)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/01634437221077174 doesnt appear reliable, but it looks like it might be a source for potential references. --Hipal (talk) 22:49, 15 November 2025 (UTC)
Origin of term?
editI don't remember the term "shadow ban" actually being used on Something Awful prior to its popularization in relation to Twitter. "Hellban" is the term I remember being used instead. I'm having trouble tracking down anything that I'm satisfied would meet WP:RS, though. Best I've been able to find is the Jeff Atwood blog post already cited in the article, and it isn't really explicit enough about it for me to be sure it'd work as a source for this specific claim. -Pikavangelist (talk) 19:12, 12 April 2026 (UTC)