Twitter's Algorithm is as good as Dead. It Shadow bans.
Who doesn’t love the little blue bird app? Yes, Twitter. The app which is mostly used to check other apps which are down. Its kind of the virtual public town-square where you can get unlimited number of people. Regardless of how great a service can be, there are downsides to almost pretty much everything — and Twitter isn’t an exception.
It suffers from many modern problems of social media and the internet age. But they have a brilliant support team and I mean it. Though they might take longer than usual to get back to you, they do get back and even if late, the work is done. But tha major problem that Twitter suffers is from is its Algorithm, its shitty Algorithm. That dumb algorithm gets to decide and rank tweets, profiles and pretty much everything on Twitter.
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I use my Twitter account to help Twitter users who are having problems with Telegram [Messenger]. Literally anyone who goes through my profile, albeit a little will understand what actually it is — filled with Telegram’s tweets and support replies. Since many users get the same question, those questions deserve the same answers as well. If I had the job of only sharing links to different tweets of the same nature, I wouldn’t have done that at all.
So here’s everything that happened:
On July 16th, a web extension on Brave browser accessed my Twitter account with malicious intent. It posted a tweet about cryptocurrency but I deleted it since I am (or now say was) a Twitter guy — my place to live and die. The next day, I find out that the another Tweet was posted while I was asleep around 3 AM in the early morning. When I woke up and opened Twitter, I saw a notification that someone liked that tweet. Immediately I deleted it.
Later when I was doing my usual replying task to users with issues, I observed that replies from my account was hidden behind a label “Show additional replies, including those that may contain offensive content".” And not just a few tweet replies were affected but almost all that I had done before and after the incident.
But then… something else happened. My account was removed from Twitter’s search suggestions. Despite searching for the exact username of my account, it wasn’t displayed. Neither do my Tweets come when searched. For example, if I tweet to @TwitterSupport and you go search @TwitterSupport the very next moment, Twitter won’t show any tweets from my account — ideally it should have shown since I mentioned that handle — but it doesn’t. This is what called shadow banning.
Though Twitter says that they don’t shadow ban, yet their algorithm makes sure that happens. Until they do not fix their algorithm right, this will start happening. No actions taken against spam accounts, but an account against which Twitter has taken to action like suspension or locking since its creation is now detected as doing activities which are negative in nature? I just don’t get how helping people brings a negative impact. That’s plain non-sense. Anyone going through my timeline and tweets would be able to say so. This is an excerpt of what they told the solution was: “For most accounts, this is a temporary outcome, and if no further negative behavior occurs, the account will eventually be restored to full access and visibility.”
So now, I have all these restrictions applied to the account:
Search suggestion ban: @heyadarsha will not be available in search suggestions. Refer to image three to see what it exactly means.
Search ban: Any Tweets from @heyadarsha will not be visible in search, despite the fact that I have mentioned some account or hashtag in that thread. Only a few of my followers will get to see the tweet, not all. It doesn’t matter what search filter you use or how powerful dorking it is. I think whether Google indexes the tweets? My guess is a NO.
Reply de-boosting: Replies from my account are hidden behind a label “show additional tweets…” for every single reply. You can refer to image one and two for a better visual understanding of what I mean.
This is what I received from Twitter Support:
Hello @heyadarsha,
We appreciate you getting back to us providing Tweet URL about your Tweet and account visibility, and we do have more information for you.
Sometimes, we will take action on an account or Tweet(s) based on behaviors that create a negative impact on Twitter. This can include interactions with other accounts, Tweeting inappropriate content, or a variety of other violations of our rules.
As a result, the visibility of these accounts or Tweet(s) may be affected. We have more information available on the Twitter blog, and our Help Center.
For most accounts, this is a temporary outcome, and if no further negative behavior occurs, the account will eventually be restored to full access and visibility.
This case will be closed and any additional responses will not be reviewed. If you need help, please file a new report.
Thanks,
Twitter Support
What’s worse is that they didn’t restore the account as how it was previously even though the proof appears to anyone who takes a look at the Twitter profile. Its terribly sad that Twitter cannot correct its Algorithm and that it has a negative and detrimental impact on users and society at large. I just hope someone at Twitter reads this and decides to fix things, hopefully.
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