Elon Musk Promises To Address Shadowbanning Soon, But There’s A Complexity Within

In a recent development, Elon Musk has expressed his intention to tackle shadowbanning - a practice that restricts a user's content from being circulated or made publicly visible without banning them outright.

Sorry it's taking so long. There are so many layers of trust & safety" software that it often takes us hours to figure out who, how and why an account was suspended or shadowbanned.

A ground up rewrite is underway that simplifies the X codebase dramatically.

- Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 17, 2023

The shadowbanning controversy has been raging since the earlier days of X, previously known as Twitter.

Musk's commitment to getting the concern resolved was evident in his interaction with users on X. Apologizing for the delay; he acknowledged the challenges that delayed the process. The Tweet goes,

There are so many layers of trust & safety" software that it often takes us hours to figure out who, how, and why an account was suspended or shadowbanned. A ground-up rewrite is underway that simplifies the X codebase dramatically.Elon MuskThe Challenges Ahead

Yoel Roth, the former Head of Trust and Safety of Twitter, explained the true complexities of shadowbanning and the difficulties in addressing it. He shared his thoughts on Bluesky, a decentralized alternative to Twitter. Roth further confirmed the legitimacy of Musk's claims while discussing the underlying challenges.

Roth also agreed that rewriting the code handling enforcement attribution was a positive step.

At the outset, Roth explained how the process of banning handles on social media platforms has been evolving. Companies, at their initial stages, might store data in simple formats like Google Docs or Spreadsheets. As the platform scales, these details get integrated into metadata attached to user accounts.

Roth referred to Guano", Twitter's practice of storing enforcement metadata in free-text notes in this regard.

Twitter's dependence on these free-text notes stemmed as it had other priorities at hand. This led to the issue that Musk pointed out. While such notes are comprehensible to humans, they prove very hard to parse programmatically". Automated user notifications are absent in this context, and they need structured formats.

Even before Twitter's acquisition, they had started working on this effort. The company had plans to roll out the updated system this year. However, the pace of the project has been slowed down due to the acquisition and its subsequent changes.

The Problem In Combating Spam

Roth also threw light on the problems in combating spam. He stated that different models are used by Twitter to encounter spam. This results in complexity, making it challenging to use shadowbanning accurately for specific actions at specific times.

With a positive solution being developed to address the challenges, Roth said that he had left instructions for the process in his Google Drive during his tenure at the company.

Considering these challenges, the feasibility of ensuring transparency about shadowbanning in the future remains questionable. Although Musk's commitment to addressing the issue looks inspiring, the task at hand seems to be complex.

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