Update August 21: How funny that 30 followers reappeared after I posted this yesterday. And, thanks to all of you who have shared your similar experiences with me and/or sent tips for the future.
I’ve been wondering lately about why I’m not getting new followers at twitter. In the past I’ve had days when 100 new followers signed up and I was pushing 12,000 followers (I know it is nothing compared to some, but I was thrilled to be reaching thousands.)
Then about ten days ago, not only did I lose dozens of followers in one day, but that lowered number has been frozen. (Remember, I am not tech savvy, so I just wondered!)
This morning, after posting my previous post, here, I also posted it at twitter as I post everything I write there, plus I tweet other news and often retweet others. I rarely miss a day.
My feed shows my tweet like this (who decided it was “sensitive?”)
So I simply tweeted this inquiry:
And, here is what one follower said:
Over a week? I tweeted over 50 times in the last week, plus dozens more retweets.
I didn’t wait for an answer about shadowbanning, but did a quick search and found this great explanation from Breitbart from more than a year ago (by Milo):
Rumours that Twitter has begun ‘shadowbanning’ politically inconvenient users have been confirmed by a source inside the company, who spoke exclusively to Breitbart Tech. His claim was corroborated by a senior editor at a major publisher.
According to the source, Twitter maintains a ‘whitelist’ of favoured Twitter accounts and a ‘blacklist’ of unfavoured accounts. Accounts on the whitelist are prioritised in search results, even if they’re not the most popular among users. Meanwhile, accounts on the blacklist have their posts hidden from both search results and other users’ timelines.
Our source was backed up by a senior editor at a major digital publisher, who told Breitbart that Twitter told him it deliberately whitelists and blacklists users. He added that he was afraid of the site’s power, noting that his tweets could disappear from users’ timelines if he got on the wrong side of the company. [I had often seen tweets disappear from my timeline, but just chalked it up to a tech hiccup!—ed]
Shadowbanning, sometimes known as “Stealth Banning” or “Hell Banning,” is commonly used by online community managers to block content posted by spammers. Instead of banning a user directly (which would alert the spammer to their status, prompting them to create a new account), their content is merely hidden from public view.
For site owners, the ideal shadowban is when a user never realizes he’s been shadowbanned.
Duh! Guess that was me!
If Steve Bannon really wants to go to war, Breitbart should consider creating its own free speech platform before Google, Facebook and Twitter ban those of us with political views different from the progressive leftist views—views those tech giants espouse—from the internet altogether.
I’ve wondered lately if I will have to one day go back to snail mail (in a plain envelope!).