Social media network owners, forum owners, etc, have a responsibility to their users to support open and fair conversation. They also have a legal responsibility to shutdown illegal conversation. Therefore they tread a fine line, practicing control over conversations on their property, while keeping it an open space for conversation.
(Sun Aug 19 2018 00:00:00 GMT+0300 (Eastern European Summer Time)) According to Pres. Donald Trump, and other Conservative leaders, social media platforms like Twitter engage in "shadow banning" which means making it hard to find postings by Conservatives. The issue is being raised repeatedly, especially in the last couple days with a twitter tirade by Pres. Trump. Therefore it is rich in irony that Rep. Kevin McCarthy posted a series of tweets last week complaining about this, ending with supposed PROOF of Twitter shadow banning. Except ... it was due to his account settings.
(Thu Jul 26 2018 00:00:00 GMT+0300 (Eastern European Summer Time)) Shadow Banning appears to be rankling Conservatives (Republicans) who are crying foul. The social media networks are supposedly shadow banning conservatives, making it harder for folks to find conservative points of view. Supposedly on Twitter prominent Republicans do not show up in search suggestions -- the dropdown appearing while you type a search request -- while equally prominent Democrats do show up. This is according to the Republicans who are raising the stink. Twitter has responded saying it was a bug, that they've now fixed. But, what is Shadow Banning, and how do we determine if Shadow Banning is happening?
