Before Musk took over, Twitter routinely shadowbanned, meaning it limited the influence of posts or entire accounts without notifying the user. For example, pre-Musk Twitter could stop users from seeing a particular person’s replies to tweets and finding a particular person’s profile in the search results. Twitter could also stop a user’s tweets from being visible in search results (even when searched word-for-word).

Shadowbanning creates a loophole for tech giants to censor a user’s content or entire account without being held accountable because the user doesn’t even know he is being silenced. Free expression being distorted by the higher powers running Twitter’s backend is not really free speech.

It’s unclear if Musk will keep Twitter’s old version of shadowbanning or adopt a new one. What we do know is that shadowbanning isn’t going away under Musk and that many accounts are still suffering, such as The Federalist CEO and co-founder Sean Davis, who has been heavily shadowbanned since January 2021. If you follow Davis and search for him, his account appears. But if you do not follow him, his account will not show up in search results, even if you type in his username word-for-word.

Musk has not made any updates to the app’s “debunking Twitter myths” page, where the company states, “Simply put, we don’t shadow ban! Ever.” This was a lie before Musk owned Twitter and it is still a lie now.