The process of limiting a Twitter account’s reach, commonly referred to as shadow banning, has now been added to the company’s official terms of service.
The process of limiting how many people can see posts from a certain Twitter account is commonly referred to as “shadow banning,” and many (including the company itself) have claimed that it is simply a conspiracy theory by conservatives and that Twitter does not limit the reach of content on its platform. But now, a change to Twitter’s terms of service appears to give the social media platform the right to do exactly that.
ReclaimTheNet.org notes that a recent change to Twitter’s terms of service adds that the company “may also remove or refuse to distribute any COntent on the Services, limit distribution or visibility of any Content on the service…”
Twitter does not clarify what content may be subject to “limited distribution or visibility” giving the company free rein to limit any content it sees fit. In January 2018, an undercover report from Project Veritas showed a former Twitter engineer named Abhinav Vadrevu appearing to admit that Twitter uses shadow banning to limit the reach of content on its platform. “So they just think that no one is engaging with their content, when in reality, no one is seeing it,” Vadrevu stated.
