Shadow banning: What is it and why Trump blames Twitter?

Donald Trump denounced Twitter on Thursday, accusing the social network of making banish the shadow prominent Republicans. The complaint was made after Vice News reported that Twitter was limiting Republicans' visibility in its search engine.

But this is not the ban on the shadow but a bug, according to Twitter.

"We are aware that some accounts are not automatically filled in the search box and we are sending a change to solve this problem," said a spokesman for Twitter. "Profiles, tweets, and discussions about these accounts appear when you search for them." To be clear, our behavioral rankings do not make judgments based on political ideologies or the substance of tweets.

The president's complaint is the latest in a series of accusations by some lawmakers about social networks and censorship. A House of Representatives committee held two hearings in July and April during which Republican lawmakers asked Twitter, Google and Facebook if their platforms deliberately silenced Conservative voices.

But what is this practice?

What is "the ban on the shadow"?

Shadow Banner is not a new concept: it is frequently used in forums and other social networks as an alternative to censor someone directly.

Instead of completely deleting an account, the shadow prohibit makes visible the publication of a person only to the person who created it. The idea is to protect other users against damaging content while the one who was the subject of banishment from the shadows decides to voluntarily leave the forum for lack of privacy. interaction.

If you censor a user directly, according to this logic, the person is aware of this and it is very possible that she opens another account to continue her behavior.

Shadow banning was the only way for Reddit to silence this type of users and the site used it until November 2015.

The practice is similar to what Facebook does with misinformation . The social network told reporters on July 11 that instead of completely censoring the pages that were behind the disinformation campaigns, they would choose to degrade their posts so that fewer people see them.

Shadow banning is used to stop robots and trolls, said Zack Allen of ZeroFox, a company that focuses on social network security.

"It can be effective in fighting bots, so their creators do not know if their bots are actually seen by other people," he said.

What is happening on Twitter is the ban on the shadow?

No.

You Still See Republican Messages Appointed in the Articles of Vice News Including Party Chairman Republican Ronna McDaniel and MP Matt Gaetz of Florida

The White House, McDaniel and Gaetz did not respond to our requests for comments

Your Twitter account may not be automatically searchable, but that does not necessarily mean that you have been vetoed this way.

The behavioral clues of Twitter caused errors with self-suggestions explains Beykpour.

"Our use of behavioral signals Research has provoked this and made the search results seem inaccurate," he said in a tweet on Wednesday. "Today we are bringing a change that will improve that.

Twitter's Product Manager for Health, David Gasca, spoke with CNET in early July about these signals.They can include the frequency with which they mute, block report, retweet, like or respond to an account.The Twitter algorithm takes interactions into account and its artificial intelligence clbadifies them as negative or positive experiences.

As part of the Twitter initiative for create healthy conversations, its artificial intelligence will favor accounts that offer more positive experiences.