Shadow Bans

 

Many influencers recently have been sharing online how they have been shadowbanned on various social media platforms.  The most recent example that comes to mind is Tim Kennedy on Instagram.  Time Kennedy has over 1.1 million followers on Instagram, but in order to find his account you must type his entire name out in order for his page to pop up.  That is only the beginning, the next thing these platforms do is limit the engagement for posts from people that are shadowbanned.  In an article from The Guardian, the author describes how many influencers recently have seen a drastic decline in interaction on their posts.  Interaction can be defined as liking, commenting, or retweeting just to name a few.   This has happened across the board too, which is concerning for many reasons.

Tim Kennedy posts mainly gun images/videos of him shooting his legally owned firearms, but he still finds his account shadowbanned.  Then we look at a popular queer arts London club called Pxssy Palace, and they face many of the same issues.  An article from The Guardian explains how this London art club has recently seen their interactions on each post decreasing substantially.  The question then becomes, what is the reason behind these random shadowbans?  

Many people seem to think that these large corporations have an agenda set out, and if their influencers do not follow that agenda then they are shadowbanned.  However, if people from all walks of life are being shadowbanned, then what is the agenda?  Why is a large corporation like instagram censoring non TOS breaking influencers?  

I do not think people have a problem with these platforms taking down dangerous accounts, or accounts that break the terms of service (TOS).  However, there seems to be no commonalities between any of the shadowbans.  People from the LGBTQ community are being censored, and so are gun toting military men.  The next question that I have is should these large platforms be treated as an extension of our first amendment, or should they be treated as a private company that has the ability to do what they want?