To what extent does “shadow suppression” occur on social media?

Question

In another thread [0] I commented on the moderation practice of Shadowbanning. But I wonder to what extent there are even more insidious methods, which I coined "shadow suppression"?Say, if instead of an all-out shadow ban a moderator (or automated scripts, for that matter) would tweak some algorithmic parameters that instruct the platform AI to limit someone's freedom of speech in very specific ways.Just like a person based on their PII and content can be accurately targeted by ads, they can be accurately singled out and subtly limited in the amount of influence they can have on the platform.Unlike a shadow ban this may never be noticed. A person's non-controversial opinion may pass through, while their political statements are directed to a small echo chamber of other people. They will never reach the audience they are intended for.The possibilities for shadow suppression are limitless. Without algorithmic transparency how do we even know how far such practices are applied?[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28343848

mgraczyk · Accepted Answer

I can't speak generally about all of Facebook because I don't know, but I can say that there are many surfaces on Facebook's products where people widely believe that shadow banning occurs, when in fact it does not, at least not in the way you're describing.Generally what is perceived as shadow banning is just algorithms learning that the poster has low engagement, so it ranks their posted content (comments, posts) lower in the future.

styluss · Answer

It's quite common. I worked on two small to medium sized social networks and it was already implemented early on. I was told it was used because of bots and not really to be used in human users.

rapnie · Answer

PS. I know that Ask HN needs more upvotes to reach front page, but it strikes me as peculiar that with 14 points and 10 comments this hasn't happened yet (not on page 2-10 either), while earlier links submitted near my entry entered front page with just 3 upvotes and zero comments.

Rijek33 · Answer

When I moderated reddit I always shadow banned bigots but left their messages to get seen by their friends to not arouse suspicion. Works very well