Narc Kenya leader Martha Karua and lawyer Donald Kipkorir have complained of being shadowbanned on X (formerly Twitter).
Shadowbanning entails blocking a social media user or limiting the reach of their posts on a social media platform without their knowledge.
In two separate statements, the two public figures lamented that their followers had remained unchanged for a long time, suggesting foul play from X.
“Dear Elon Musk, since you bought Twitter now X, my Followers got stuck at 1.4million. Did you freeze more people following me? And the way I have been in your corner ever since even before X! (sic),” Kipkorir posted.
Karua lamented that her followers had not grown beyond 1.6 million.
“Mine frozen at 1.6 something is going on here,” Karua stated.
Shadowbanning on X
In December 2022, Musk released “secret” files that showed that Twitter built “secret blacklists” and ran a clandestine operation to cut the visibility of targeted tweets, accounts and topics.
Musk promised to build tools to alert users when they are shadowbanned and why, with a procedure to appeal.
“Twitter is working on a software update that will show your true account status, so you know clearly if you’ve been shadowbanned, the reason why and how to appeal,” Musk promised.
Twitter is working on a software update that will show your true account status, so you know clearly if you’ve been shadowbanned, the reason why and how to appeal
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 9, 2022
Although Twitter (subsequently X after takeover by Musk) has never admitted to shadowbanning, there have been several complaints regarding the same.
Each moment there is a complaint, Musk has always promised to get to the bottom of it.
In November 2022, Musk promised a new policy which looked similar to shadowbanning, entailing “freedom of speech but not freedom of reach”.
“New Twitter policy is freedom of speech, but not freedom of reach. Negative/hate tweets will be max deboosted & demonetized, so no ads or other revenue to Twitter. You won’t find the tweet unless you specifically seek it out, which is no different from rest of internet,” he stated.
He however said that the policy would apply to individual tweets and not accounts.
“Note, this applies just to the individual tweet, not the whole account,” he added.
