Disha Mitra
Twitter management places secret ban called ‘shadowban’ on Musk’s account for his last post
Source: Republic World
Twitter’s new shareholder came under a shadowban from the platform’s management. Elon Musk, who holds a 9.2% stake in the company faced a secret ban on his account after a controversial post. An active supporter for cryptocurrency, specifically dogecoin, the Tesla CEO is famous for his social media shares. He has been one to actively share his thoughts and opinions on social media, without much hesitation.
This week, he continued to cause some controversy with his posts, where he often shares ‘memes,’ a sort of a funny picture available on social media. He posted such a meme on Saturday, April 23, with his followers. However this time, it seems to also have caught the eyes of the administration team of Twitter Inc.
shadow ban council reviewing tweet … pic.twitter.com/cawjtwc7CW
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 23, 2022
In the post, Musk shared a picture of the founder of Microsoft Corp and one of the world’s richest businessmen, Bill Gates. The Tesla CEO made fun of the Microsoft founder’s weight gain, implying that Gates looked like he was pregnant. Musk made the joke by placing an emoji next to Gate’s picture. This emoji is one of the new ones launched by iOS in the last software update introduced the previous week. The emoji has already gained a widespread attention from the internet where audience is divided over its relevance. Following the tweet with Musk’s posts, Twitter’s management team initiated the imposition of a ‘secret ban’ on his account on the platform.
What is this secret ban called ‘shadowban’?
A secret ban system adopted by Twitter is referred to as a ‘shadowban.’ Mainly, it is applied to accounts that visibly tweet way too much or ones the platform detects to have started following a lot of accounts. The only way one can figure out if the Shadowban is applied to them or not is through certain sites. These sites are particularly created for such people to find if they are ‘shadowbaned.’ Hence, under normal circumstances, a user would never find out if the ‘shadowban’ is applied to them or not. When this secret ban is implemented, tweets posted by the concerned account in response to other Tweets do not appear to their followers.
Over the past few weeks, Musk’s association with the social media platform has come into prominence. Earlier, he was just a controversial user of the platform who just posted ‘interesting’ tweets. However, since becoming a shareholder, he has visibly been facing issues with the company’s board. The board refused him when he offered to buy the company for $43 billion, adopting a poison pill.