You May Be Shadow Banned On Twitter For Doing Nothing

Elon Musk has been under fire a lot recently over the decisions he's made since taking control of Twitter, but this one might be his most controversial yet.

Reports say he has come out with the new $ 8-a-month plan to be a verified user, a price that many are unwilling to pay. One thing that wasn't perfectly clear from the start, however, is that verified users will have priority over other users, causing posts and tweets by verified users to appear first in a user's feed. Musk stated in a recent interview:

"We're going to prioritize Twitter search, replies, mentions, by verified users first."

This means that unverified users will be pushed further down, and their posts won't appear as high up in your feed, if at all, which is essentially what a shadow ban does.

What Is A Shadow Ban and How Does It Impact My Account?

A shadow ban on social media means you can post freely, but your posts are either pushed to the bottom of everyone's feed or do not show up at all. If you want to see somebody's posts, you would have to go to their profile, which will also be harder to find since verified users get priority in searches too.

This makes it so that Twitter is really only for those who are willing and able to pay, which goes against the free speech platform that Musk was claiming Twitter would become.

This isn't only detrimental to those wanting to see content from their family and friends but to local businesses and communities as well. Destiny USA in Syracuse, one of the largest malls in America, doesn't even have a verified account. Of course, a small mom-and-pop shop isn't going to be verified. That means posts from locally owned businesses likely won't show up for you if you can even find the account of these businesses to begin with.

Additionally, the Syracuse and Utica Police Departments are not even verified, meaning that they will be unable to send messages and alerts out to the community through Twitter.

Musk's argument that it will reduce spam and scammers on the platform isn't entirely valid either. It costs a scammer thousands upon thousands of dollars to illegally acquire a hacked verified Twitter account now. With this, a scammer will be able to become verified for $8 a month. This could make it easier to impersonate a celebrity or influencer and appear verified and scam money from people.

Musk did state however, he will not implement these changes until the political season is over.