My experiment with alternative social media exposed subtle censorship.

Learn to spot shadow banning by tracking your post reach closely.

3 comments

3 Comments

You mention tracking post reach to spot shadow banning, but that method is pretty shaky. Algorithms update constantly and your reach can dip for lots of normal reasons. Platforms are mostly just sorting content based on what gets engagement, not secretly hiding posts. It's easy to call a drop in views censorship when it's often just how the site works. Your content might not be what people are looking for right now. Blaming shadow banning first stops you from seeing simpler fixes.

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paul91mo ago

Hold on, I get what you're saying but I've seen too many cases where the drop is just too sudden and weird. Like, one day my posts are fine, next day they get zero likes from my own followers? That doesn't add up. Algorithms do change, but when everyone who usually sees my stuff suddenly doesn't, it feels off. I've talked to others who had the same thing happen after posting certain topics. It's not just about engagement, sometimes it's about what you're saying. Blaming shadow banning might seem easy, but ignoring it means missing when platforms actually do hide stuff.

torres.pat1mo ago

Read an article last week about a journalist who tested this. She posted the same exact thing on two accounts, one new and one old. The old account with more followers got almost no views, while the new one did fine. That's not an algorithm change, that's a flag on the account. Platforms absolutely do hide stuff they don't like, they just don't admit it. Calling it a reach issue lets them off the hook.

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