Shadow banning: Are social networks suppressing political content?
UC journalism professor discusses how suspicions of suppression, promotion are hard to prove
WVXU's Cincinnati Edition spoke to a University of Cincinnati journalism professor about the topic of shadow banning, the concept that social networks are promoting or suppressing content based on the network's political leanings.
UC College of Arts and Sciences Professor Jeffrey Blevins told host Lucy May that many people have suspicions about active meddling by social media sites.
“You post something on your social media feed and you assume it will appear in the feeds of people who follow you,” Blevins said. “But it's possible for the social media platform to mute that post so it doesn't appear as prominently as you would expect.”
“It's incredibly difficult to prove,” Blevins said. “We don't know what goes into the secret sauce of the algorithms that the social networks use.”
Blevins is a professor of journalism who also teaches in UC's School of Public and International Affairs. He is the co-author of the 2024 book “Social Media and Digital Politics: Networked Reason in an Age of Digital Emotion.”
Blevins was joined on the show by Tatum Hunter, a technology reporter for the Washington Post.
“Companies will say on the record that they will hide people's posts from their algorithmic feed if it violates their recommendations standards. That's different from community guidelines that can get you kicked off the app,” Hunter said.
Blevins said many people mistake a social network's management of content with censorship or a violation of the First Amendment of the Constitution. But Blevins noted that the First Amendment protects speech from government intrusion, not a third-party company's actions.
Paradoxically, the social networks' content moderation is protected speech as well, he said.
“They are also entitled to First Amendment protection to suppress speech they want to suppress,” he said
Listen to the Cincinnati Edition interview.
Featured image at top: UC journalism Professor Jeffrey Blevins talked to WVXU's Cincinnati Edition about shadow banning. Photo/Stockcam/iStockPhoto
Related Stories
What you post on social media matters to employers
February 15, 2023
What you post on social media can be in conflict with your employers standards, says UC social media expert Jeffrey Blevins. More and more often people are getting dinged, or worse, for posts that put their employers in a bad light. Blevins suggests a social media review/edit of content and more thought put into posts.
Shadow banning: Are social networks suppressing political content?
November 4, 2024
UC journalism Professor Jeffrey Blevins tells WVXU's Cincinnati Edition that many people suspect social networks are promoting or suppressing content based on politics. But he said it's difficult to prove.
Fake news headlines are going viral. What to know
October 22, 2024
CBS News turns to a University of Cincinnati journalism professor to examine why lies and misinformation are so commonly shared on social media.