Shadow Banning on Twitter

Shadow Banning for Republicans and Conservatives

Shadow banning is a social media phrase that can be used to describe the act of temporary blocking a user from viewing content posted. On Facebook, features such as “unfollow”, “snooze” and “block” are prime examples of shadow burning. Once a user is shadow banned, they cannot access posts made by the user on the other end. It is also known as ghost banning. This feature has become quite popular on social media platforms. Facebook, Youtube, and Twitter have been on the receiving end when it comes to backlash on abusing the censorship policy powers. Conservatives have claimed that these social media platforms have suppressed their freedom of expression online. As a result, Facebook has introduced the shadow ban. This way, users can shadow ban content or users they find offensive.

President Trump has given his take on shadow banning on Twitter. As an ardent Twitter user, Trump feels that Twitter has been secretly blocking some Republican users. He feels that this move is biased and aims to hush Republicans from sharing their opinions online by blocking their autofill search results. These comments came in after a video by James O’Keefe resurfaced detailing that Twitter has been removing or blocking certain users such as Ronna McDaniel the Republican Party chairman. Therefore, the only way Twitter can address these allegations is by introducing shadow banning for its users like Facebook.

The Federal Election Commission

The biggest question being asked by social media users who have experience censorship is, “will the Federal Election Commission intervene on these censorships and restrictions that have been going on social media networks?” Social media users are hoping that the Censorship Act will primarily fix the suppression going on Twitter. Johhny Rye, who introduced the Act to stop the ongoing social media stringent policies, is giving hope to social media users and stakeholders. He promises solutions that will strike a balance between social media and its users as well as maintain ideal community standards that will not infringe on the rights of any group (Simon, 2017). Rye filed this bill after uproar from different groups of online community and he assures social media platform users that at the end of this debate, the delete or censor measures that social media corporations have been exercising will be regulated.

The question, however, is if the bill will allow for compensations for damages caused to businesses due to censorship policies in the past two years. If the bill goes through, the plaintiffs will be compensated a minimum of $75,000, for each business post that was wrongful deleted or flagged down by social media corporations (Simon, 2015). Actual and punitive damages will also be applied to the corporations if found guilty of unnecessary flagging and censorship. However, these charges will not apply to small social media platforms but giant corporations such as, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

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