Twitter's new anti-shadowbanning labels go live: What is their significance
What's the story
Earlier this month, Twitter announced its plan to introduce new labels to increase transparency on the platform. They show whether the company reduced the visibility of certain tweets. The labels are now live. The new feature is touted as part of "freedom of speech, not reach." Let's take a look at how significant the additions of these labels are to Twitter.
Context
Why does this story matter?
A practice called 'shadowbanning' is popular among social media platforms. It is a content-moderation tactic that reduces the visibility of controversial content rather than removing it. Twitter has been accused of this practice more than others. Twitter's current CEO Elon Musk has repeatedly assured users who have been shadowbanned he would get to the bottom of the issue.
Labels
The labels are visible to the public
Twitter's new labels will indicate whether a tweet's visibility has been limited. Authors and users will be able to see them. The company reduces the visibility of certain tweets because they can potentially violate its policies. The labels will show the policy a tweet can potentially violate. Initially, the labels are only for tweets that potentially violate Twitter's 'Hateful Conduct Policy.'
Information
Labels bring a new level of transparency: Twitter
"These labels bring a new level of transparency to enforcement actions," Twitter said in its blog post. "This change is designed to result in enforcement actions that are more proportional and transparent for everyone on our platform," the company added.
Significance
Twitter's previous management was accused of strict shadowbanning
Remember the second part of Twitter Files? It revealed various tactics the company's previous management allegedly used to shadowban tweets and accounts. The previous regime had secret blacklists and used 'Visible Filtering' to moderate what users saw. Musk outed the company's dirty laundry to show how Twitter curbed free speech. The new visibility policy is a materialization of Musk's promises.
Granular
Labels are only for shadowbanned tweets
The visibility labels will be applied at the tweet level. That brings us to the question, what about shadowbanned accounts? Maybe Twitter has something in the pipeline to deal with that. There are also doubts about the labels attracting unwanted attention to certain tweets. However, once the novelty of the labels wears off, that should stop.
Twitter Post
No censorship and no shadowbanning
🚫Censorship
— Twitter Safety (@TwitterSafety) April 24, 2023
🚫Shadowbanning
✅Freedom of speech, not reach.
Our new labels are now live. https://t.co/a0nTyPSZWY