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I am not an Elon or X fan, and I don’t think this is Good, but Twitter’s policy pre-X to comply with national content laws was to geo-block content when a government demanded it be blocked. I don’t recall if the algorithmic shadow-ban was in that toolkit pre-X as well, but it wouldn’t surprise me. Again, I don’t think this is a good outcome, but it’s not substantially at odds with what Twitter pre-Elon would’ve done (I also seem to recall Twitter was very sensitive to employees visiting or living in Turkey - the relationship with the Turkish government had been fraught for years).

Now, if the critique here is that Mr. Free Speech is rolling over and showing his belly to the first autocrat who shows up at his door, yeah, I get that, but it’s a little bit more of a “dog bites man” than a “man bites dog” story at this point.

Elon has bragged about shadow banning posts in the interview with don lemon. Apparently twitter has been the most important public town square… to manipulate. Thank you.

The Turkish government definitely has a hand in this situation. Otherwise, I think the fact that I see almost no posts from an account that has notifications enabled and that I follow indicates a flawed algorithm. I congratulate the friend who shared this post. He touched on a very nice, detailed topic...

They won elections for years with a puppet candidate. Now there is no puppet candidate, and they want to block this one by using all the power of the state.

I continue to be skeptical of hanging hopes for 'free speech' on expecting free-as-in-beer, ad-supported, privately owned websites to actively promote the things that you write.

Irrespective of how Musk's overall social media posturing portrays "free speech" -- X is the only one whose speech matters and they are apparently choosing to 'speak' in ways that don't support him. They are technically doing this guy a favor by letting him post on their site in the first place, and in an algorithmic timeline it is impossible to justify how much reach his posts "should" have vs. how much they do have.

If someone wants to post their speech, they should do so on their own website that they pay for and control. They should purchase advertising if they're not satisfied with their traffic. Thwarting those things -- now that's unethical government censorship, which one can justifiably be mad about. Depending on the government in question it may or may not be unconstitutional.

Relying on X or Meta or whomever to distribute your speech just because there's some vague notion of non-interference in speech on such platforms in the countries where they're based is foolish when you live somewhere else with different laws. Even if the US constitution had some draconian provision to force X to promote his speech, that can't really protect him in Turkiye where the government can just block X.

Even if X is acting under a court order in Turkey, the shadow-ban–like behavior on a global platform is concerning. Hiding posts algorithmically goes beyond legal compliance and raises serious questions about whether X is protecting free speech or quietly facilitating censorship.

Not the first time this has happened. It’s very strange. Elon is willing to risk breaking the laws of the EU, Brazil and the UK yet caters to Turkish law with seemingly no resistance whatsoever.

Earlier this year: https://xcancel.com/netblocks/status/1902230361968427206

Considering Turkey is an EU membership candidate. This should fall under the guidelines of Digital Services Act. This is a clear violation.

I think shadow banning is harmful. But I have been ostracized all my life so I am definitely biased

Misleading title. There is no proof at all, just speculation in this post.

From the last paragraph:

"We don’t have solid proof, but it strongly suggests that X is secretly shadow banning İmamoğlu. I don’t think Elon Musk will change this, but I’m writing this article to show the political power he holds."

I wondered early on if this X brand was going to take off. If maybe this was a genius move that I just didn't comprehend. And yet here we are, over 3 years later, still needing to caveat X with Twitter in common usage.

It’s been long time since Twitter invited to settle in Turkey.. so guessing they getting on well on something obvious lol

> We don't have solid proof but

These shadowban stories are so often just hearsay and anecdotes from random users just feeding weird conspiracy vibes. Never go on a user saying they don't see something, there's too many variables in the mix from their usage patterns to sure, actual weird Elon/X algorithm tweaks at play.

They have to follow the law of the country as tyrannical as it is like they did in Brazil. I hope one day they say fuck it.

The problem here is primarily Erdogan and secondarily Musk.

Hard to believe given the tweets have 100ks of views.

That’s it. Im going to get my family to delete their x accounts.

Nothing shocking, Musk doesn't stand for free speech, neither does Erdogan.

X's stated goal is to comply with the laws of any given country that it operates in. As the article states, there is a court order to restrict that particular users account https://x.com/GlobalAffairs/status/1920426409358455081.

This is a nothing burger.

We all know is vehemently aligned on right wing ideology. So this is not surprising. What in surprised by though is why it’s relevant.

Mr freedom of speech strikes again!

I like how Elon is so eager to bend his knee to censor requests from authoritarian "friend" governments like India and Turkey

but when the request comes from a supposedly "left-leaning" judiciary like Brazil to suspend accounts that were posting misinformation, suddenly he stands on his principles and defy the orders.

As they should, the islamic brotherhood are terrorists or soft terrorists funding terrorists. Twitter used o bloack terrorists but then started letting them on to propagate propaganda and literally use the platform to mobilize their troops all over the world, the islamic invasion, as the world sees it today. It has been in the works for decades while we got busy with our own 1st world issues like feminism and homosexuality. Those people will kill these fanatics but uses them to weaken their target.

Elon Musk loves to brand himself as a “free speech absolutist” but when it comes to authoritarian regimes like Turkey, that principle evaporates instantly. Pre-Musk Twitter, for all its flaws, at least pushed back against censorship requests - now, X bends the knee without hesitation.

Shadow-banning opposition voices is a gift to governments that fear open debate, and Musk is complicit.

Free speech isn’t free if it only applies where it’s convenient.