Content Moderation with Shadowbanning

References

• Andres R, Slivko O (2021) Combating online hate speech: The impact of legislation on Twitter. ZEW Discussion Paper No. 21-103, Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research, Mannheim, Germany.Google Scholar
• Apodaca T, Uzcátegui-Liggett N (2024) How we investigated shadowbanning on Instagram. Markup (February 25), https://themarkup.org/automated-censorship/2024/02/25/how-we-investigated-shadowbanning-on-instagram.Google Scholar
• Bauer K, Gill A (2024) Mirror, mirror on the wall: Algorithmic assessments, transparency, and self-fulfilling prophecies. Inform. Systems Res. 35(1):226–248.Link, Google Scholar
• Beknazar-Yuzbashev G, Jiménez Durán R, Stalinski M (2024) A model of harmful yet engaging content on social media. AEA Papers and Proceedings (American Economic Association, Nashville, TN), 678–683.Google Scholar
• Beknazar-Yuzbashev G, Jiménez Durán R, McCrosky J, Stalinski M (2022) Toxic content and user engagement on social media: Evidence from a field experiment. Preprint, submitted December 29, https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4307346.Google Scholar
• Brown S (2021) Social media is broken. A new report offers 25 ways to fix it. MIT Management (June 30), https://mitsloan.mit.edu/ideas-made-to-matter/social-media-broken-a-new-report-offers-25-ways-to-fix-it.Google Scholar
• Chen YS, Zaman T (2024) Shaping opinions in social networks with shadow banning. PLoS One 19(3):e0299977.Crossref, Google Scholar
• CIGI-IPSOS (2019) CIGI-IPSOS global survey: Internet security & trust. Retrieved July 23, https://www.cigionline.org/sites/default/files/documents/2019%20CIGI-Ipsos%20Global%20Survey%20-%20Part%203%20Social%20Media%2C%20Fake%20News%20%26%20Algorithms.pdf.Google Scholar
• Constine J (2019) Instagram now demotes vaguely “inappropriate” content. TechCrunch (April 10), https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/10/instagram-borderline/.Google Scholar
• Cook J (2020) Instagram’s CEO says shadow banning “is not a thing.” That’s not true. Huffington Post (February 25), https://www.huffpost.com/entry/instagram-shadow-banning-is-real_n_5e555175c5b63b9c9ce434b0.Google Scholar
• Cotter K (2023) “Shadowbanning is not a thing”: Black box gaslighting and the power to independently know and credibly critique algorithms. Inform. Comm. Soc. 26(6):1226–1243.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Delmonaco D, Mayworm S, Thach H, Guberman J, Augusta A, Haimson OL (2024) “What are you doing, TikTok?”: How marginalized social media users perceive, theorize, and “prove” shadowbanning. Proc. ACM Human-Comput. Interaction 8(CSCW1):1–39.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Dixon S (2023) Daily time spent on social networking by users worldwide from 2012 to 2023. Accessed April 22, 2025, https://www.statista.com/statistics/433871/daily-social-media-usage/.Google Scholar
• Dstribute (2022) How to prevent ghost posting on Craigslist? dstribute.io (November 11), https://dstribute.io/craigslist/how-to-prevent-ghost-posting-on-craigslist/.Google Scholar
• Dwork C, Hays C, Kleinberg J, Raghavan M (2024) Content moderation and the formation of online communities: A theoretical framework. Proc. ACM Web Conf. 2024 (Association for Computing Machinery, New York), 1307–1317.Google Scholar
• European Commission (2023) Digital services act transparency database. Accessed December 18, 2024, https://transparency.dsa.ec.europa.eu/.Google Scholar
• Fagan F (2020) Optimal social media content moderation and platform immunities. Eur. J. Law Econom. 50(3):437–449.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Fowler GA (2022) Shadowbanning is real: Here’s how you end up muted by social media. Washington Post (December 27), https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/12/27/shadowban/.Google Scholar
• Gillespie T (2022) Reduction/borderline content/shadowbanning. Yale J. Law Tech. 24:476–492.Google Scholar
• Gopal RD, Hojati A, Patterson RA (2025) A little bit goes a long way: Indirect effects of content moderation on online social media. Internat. J. Electronic Commerce 29(1):39–64.Crossref, Google Scholar
• He Q, Hong Y, Raghu T (2024) Platform governance with algorithm-based content moderation: An empirical study on Reddit. Inform. Systems Res. 36(2):1078–1095.Link, Google Scholar
• Huber TL, Kude T, Dibbern J (2017) Governance practices in platform ecosystems: Navigating tensions between cocreated value and governance costs. Inform. Systems Res. 28(3):563–584.Link, Google Scholar
• Jhaver S, Bruckman A, Gilbert E (2019) Does transparency in moderation really matter? User behavior after content removal explanations on Reddit. Proc. ACM Human-Comput. Interaction 3(CSCW):1–27.Google Scholar
• Jiménez-Durán R (2023) The economics of content moderation: Theory and experimental evidence from hate speech on Twitter. Preprint, submitted October 2, https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4590147.Google Scholar
• Kominers SD, Shapiro JM (2024) Content moderation with opaque policies. NBER Working Paper No. 32156, National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, MA.Google Scholar
• Leerssen P (2023) An end to shadow banning? Transparency rights in the Digital Services Act between content moderation and curation. Comput. Law Security Rev. 48:105790.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Liu Y, Yildirim P, Zhang ZJ (2022) Implications of revenue models and technology for content moderation strategies. Marketing Sci. 41(4):831–847.Link, Google Scholar
• Madio L, Quinn M (2024) Content moderation and advertising in social media platforms. J. Econom. Management Strategy 34(2):342–369.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Mathew B, Dutt R, Goyal P, Mukherjee A (2019) Spread of hate speech in online social media. Proc. 10th ACM Conf. Web Sci. (Association for Computing Machinery, New York), 173–182.Google Scholar
• Miller DT, Morrison KR (2009) Expressing deviant opinions: Believing you are in the majority helps. J. Experiment. Soc. Psych. 45(4):740–747.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Möhlmann M, Zalmanson L, Henfridsson O, Gregory RW (2021) Algorithmic management of work on online labor platforms: When matching meets control. MIS Quart. 45(4):1999–2022.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Mostagir M, Siderius J (2023) When should platforms break echo chambers? University of Michigan and Massachusetts Institute of Technology Working Paper, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA.Google Scholar
• Müller K, Schwarz C (2023) The effects of online content moderation: Evidence from President Trump’s account deletion. Preprint, submitted December 11, 2022, https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4307346.Google Scholar
• Nan G, Ding N, Li G, Li Z, Li D (2023) Two-tier regulation models for the user-generated content platform: A game theoretic analysis. Decision Support Systems 175:114034.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Nicholas G (2022) Shedding light on shadowbanning Preprint, submitted May 19, https://osf.io/preprints/osf/xcz2t_v1.Google Scholar
• Oremus W (2019) Twitter admits it was hiding some people’s tweets by mistake—Again. Medium (June 3), https://onezero.medium.com/twitter-admits-it-was-hiding-some-peoples-tweets-by-mistake-again-2cdcb5aa5708.Google Scholar
• Pasquale F (2015) The Black Box Society: The Secret Algorithms That Control Money and Information (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA).Crossref, Google Scholar
• Schwarz C, Jiménez Durán R, Müller K (2022) The effect of content moderation on online and offline hate: Evidence from Germany’s NetzDG. CEPR Discussion Paper No. 17554, CEPR Press, Paris, London.Google Scholar
• Tiwana A, Konsynski B, Bush AA (2010) Research commentary—Platform evolution: Coevolution of platform architecture, governance, and environmental dynamics. Inform. Systems Res. 21(4):675–687.Link, Google Scholar
• Walsh R (2006) Micro-ISV: From Vision to Reality (Apress, New York).Google Scholar
• Wu Y (2023) Creation, consumption, and control of sensitive content. Marketing Sci. 43(4):885–902.Link, Google Scholar
• Yildirim P, Gal-Or E, Geylani T (2013) User-generated content and bias in news media. Management Sci. 59(12):2655–2666.Link, Google Scholar
• Zhao L (2024) Algorithmic camouflage: Exploring the shadowbans imposed by algorithms to moderate the content of Chinese gay men. Big Data Soc. 11(4):20539517241296037.Crossref, Google Scholar