Elon Musk says Twitter is developing a feature that shows if you’ve been ‘shadowbanned’

Elon Musk has announcement Twitter is currently working on a software update that will give you access to a tool that can clearly show if you’ve been shadowbanned. The term means different things for different platforms, but being shadowbanned usually makes your posts invisible to other users or makes your profile hard to find without your knowledge. Musk says the upcoming tool will also explain why you were banned and give you instructions on how to submit an appeal.

Instagram comes from launched a similar feature with its latest update, letting you know if you are currently blocked from recommendations. At the moment it can only show if you’ve been blocked from recommendations in Explore, Feed and Reels, but Instagram is working to expand the tool so you can see if you’ve been blocked from “suggested accounts” as well. ”

Musk didn’t explain how Twitter will implement the feature, but he made the announcement soon after. Bari Weiss released part two of The Twitter Files. In the thread, Weiss said Twitter used “visibility filtering,” which is apparently just another term for shadowbanning, on certain conservative figures. Musk once called himself a “free speech absolutist.” After taking over Twitter, he began lifting the bans of several controversial users, including former President Donald Trump, The Daily Stormer’s infamous neo nazi creator Andrew Anglin and other white nationalists.

Advertisers have fled the platform since Musk took over due to concerns about policy changes and the reinstatement of banned accounts. In a blog post late last month, Twitter assured advertisers that “none of the [its] policies have changed. And according to a new report from Reuters, Twitter is preparing to release a set of ad controls in an effort to attract advertisers to the website. The controls, which could launch as early as next week, would allow advertisers to block their ads from appearing above or below tweets with the specific keywords they choose.