HACKER Q&A
📣 high_byte

How to get un-shadow banned on Twitter?


Has anyone else here experienced this? (I know many people did!)

So I suspected this for a while but I finally confirmed it - I was shadow banned; to my understanding this is likely because I opened a bot (commands on @mention) account with same mail/phone or whatever.

This is worst than actual banning. I've been living in the shadows for who knows how long.

Recently I gained some momentum - one of my threads (same handle, @high_byte) got relatively viral and I doubled my followers overnight. (from 300 to almost 600 lol)

But still I am invisible to the world. support@twitter.com auto-replies with basically "we don't answer via email". Their support page has only Q&A and no contact information. This should be illegal!

What can I do?

  👤 WHATDOESIT Accepted Answer ✓
Why should it be illegal? Why are you entitled to usage of Twitter and to the time of their employees? How much do you pay per month and what does your contract say?

Anyways, I sympathize - I think generating outrage on HN is about your best option. But let's not talk about illegality here, it's still a free service. You're not going to get free human time from any other kind of company, so why should internet companies give it to you?

👤 gaws
> This is worst than actual banning. I've been living in the shadows for who knows how long.

You put too much personal value on a free social media website that has no obligation to its users.

> What can I do?

Stop using Twitter.

👤 MrPowerGamerBR
You need to stop your bot altogether, then you wait a few weeks, then maybe they will remove the shadow ban in your account.

Having a Twitter bot is hard due to that exact reason: Even if you are using the API in the way Twitter intended, they will shadow ban your account if you are tweeting a lot of tweets with similar content.

That was my experience with developing bots for Twitter, however my main account didn't get shadow banned, only the bot's account.

👤 A3mercury
Honestly im not sure there is much you can do. I had 3 twitter accounts: my personal one that I’ve had for 10+ years, a programming one, and a political one. All 3 were shadowbanned as far as I know (using one of those online tools to check accounts) and no idea for how long. I don’t get a lot of followers and any of them until recently.

When Elon Musk started to purchase twitter I checked again and all 3 weren’t shadowbanned anymore.