A new report from the New York Times has brought to light the workings of the X app and how criticizing the owner and tech billionaire Elon Musk might secretly punish you.
The report highlights with evidence how three leading accounts belonging to prominent right-wing users had their engagement drop or even vanish overnight. The posts plunged right below the figures for view counts that are normally found. Shockingly, some cases never returned to their original figure.
The alarming drops off appear to arrive at a suspicious time, and some experts feel they are proof of shadow banning. The latter is the term reserved for the art of immensely reducing the user’s reach without letting them know that they’re going to get punished.
As a result, it gives the site admins the chance to ban users without actually banning them, and that’s hard to detect. It’s common to assume this as the number of critics opposing Musk is rising as we speak. So this might be the latest proof we have of the hypocritical devotion of the billionaire towards matters like free speech.
The news is working against the environment that Musk once vowed to protect, which was related to producing a system where free speech was the real goal.
One of the examples of the account that underwent a possible shadowing belonged to Anastasia Maria Loupis, who has nearly one million followers and gets hundreds of thousands of views every single day. Most of her posts were popular as they shared comments and conspiracy theories with the most antisemitic statements.
What is interesting is how the report shares that none of these types of topics prevented numerous accounts from getting linked to the popular X app.
In December of last year, there was a lot of misinformation rolled out by the same account regarding vaccines, and then criticism of Elon Musk for supporting immigration programs that gave skilled workers in the US the chance to flourish. Many felt the tech billionaire wasn’t showing hate to immigrants, which was necessary, as they called them the root of all evil.
Once the engagement for this account fell, the analysis from the New York Times proved that it would be a miracle if posts hit the lower ten-thousand threshold. There was so much suspicion of a shadow ban, and that led to the creation of another new account through X. Interestingly, that certain account got more views and likes than the first one.
The report published has the account user speaking about how if the same actions were done on a smaller-scale account, then people wouldn’t notice, but it’s being done to bigger ones, and that can be an issue. After all, everyone is noticing.
It’s just wrong to assume that this platform is a free speech one, and then you go off shutting people’s mouths by these types of actions, right? The fact that social media keeps getting blamed here is where the problem arises.
Image: DIW-Aigen
Read next: Pew Survey: 48% of Teens See Social Media as Harmful, 45% Acknowledge Negative Impact on Sleep
The report highlights with evidence how three leading accounts belonging to prominent right-wing users had their engagement drop or even vanish overnight. The posts plunged right below the figures for view counts that are normally found. Shockingly, some cases never returned to their original figure.
The alarming drops off appear to arrive at a suspicious time, and some experts feel they are proof of shadow banning. The latter is the term reserved for the art of immensely reducing the user’s reach without letting them know that they’re going to get punished.
As a result, it gives the site admins the chance to ban users without actually banning them, and that’s hard to detect. It’s common to assume this as the number of critics opposing Musk is rising as we speak. So this might be the latest proof we have of the hypocritical devotion of the billionaire towards matters like free speech.
The news is working against the environment that Musk once vowed to protect, which was related to producing a system where free speech was the real goal.
One of the examples of the account that underwent a possible shadowing belonged to Anastasia Maria Loupis, who has nearly one million followers and gets hundreds of thousands of views every single day. Most of her posts were popular as they shared comments and conspiracy theories with the most antisemitic statements.
What is interesting is how the report shares that none of these types of topics prevented numerous accounts from getting linked to the popular X app.
In December of last year, there was a lot of misinformation rolled out by the same account regarding vaccines, and then criticism of Elon Musk for supporting immigration programs that gave skilled workers in the US the chance to flourish. Many felt the tech billionaire wasn’t showing hate to immigrants, which was necessary, as they called them the root of all evil.
Once the engagement for this account fell, the analysis from the New York Times proved that it would be a miracle if posts hit the lower ten-thousand threshold. There was so much suspicion of a shadow ban, and that led to the creation of another new account through X. Interestingly, that certain account got more views and likes than the first one.
The report published has the account user speaking about how if the same actions were done on a smaller-scale account, then people wouldn’t notice, but it’s being done to bigger ones, and that can be an issue. After all, everyone is noticing.
It’s just wrong to assume that this platform is a free speech one, and then you go off shutting people’s mouths by these types of actions, right? The fact that social media keeps getting blamed here is where the problem arises.
Image: DIW-Aigen
Read next: Pew Survey: 48% of Teens See Social Media as Harmful, 45% Acknowledge Negative Impact on Sleep
