[Air-L] New CDT research on "Shadowbanning"

[Dhanaraj Thakur]

Hi everyone,

We published a new research report today examining opaque content 
moderation practices on social media, colloquially known as 
“shadowbanning.” The report, /Shedding Light on Shadowbanning/ 
<https://cdt.org/insights/shedding-light-on-shadowbanning/>, finds that 
nearly one in 10 U.S. social media users believes they have been 
shadowbanned (i.e., had their content hidden or reduced in visibility, 
without being informed by the platform). Our national survey of social 
media users also found that those who believe they have been 
shadowbanned are disproportionately male, Republican, Hispanic, or 
non-cisgender. People most commonly believed they had been shadowbanned 
for their political views (39%) or their positions on social issues 
(29%), and often felt persecuted by social media companies and gaslit by 
those companies’ public denials. Overall, surveys and interviews 
conducted by CDT show that this widespread perception has contributed to 
public distrust and conspiratorial attitudes towards social media 
companies’ content moderation methods.

Social media companies adopt misleadingly narrow definitions of 
“shadowbanning” in their communications that are out of touch with how 
people actually use the term, but the report found that many platforms 
do likely engage in the practice when it is more broadly defined. We 
also identified certain cases in which social media companies might not 
inform users that their content is being moderated, in order to stop bad 
actors from finding and exploiting structural weaknesses in platforms’ 
moderation efforts.

The report concludes with recommendations for social media companies, 
including:

  * Minimize shadowbanning. Social media companies should only shadowban
    when it is strictly necessary to protect the safety and integrity of
    the platform.
  * Disclose shadowbanning practices. Social media companies should
    publicize all the circumstances in which they will moderate a user’s
    content without informing them.
  * Empower researchers. Social media companies should, under certain
    conditions, provide outside researchers with the data they need to
    verify the shadowbanning practices they claim and to uncover other
    possible harmful effects shadowbanning may have.

You can read the full report here 
<https://cdt.org/insights/shedding-light-on-shadowbanning/>, and we have 
twitter thread here 
<https://twitter.com/CenDemTech/status/1518984364352225281> with more 
findings. Feel free to share and as always we welcome your feedback.


take care,

Dhanaraj



-- 

*Dhanaraj Thakur* (he/him) | Research Director
Center for Democracy & Technology |*cdt.org <https://cdt.org/>*
*E:* dthakur at cdt.org | *P:* +1 202 407 8849 | @thakurdhanaraj