Leaked screenshots of Twitter’s internal systems indicate that the company keeps “blacklists” for users it deems undesirable, according to multiple reports. The leaks followed the largest hack in the platform’s history.
The images, said to be screencaps of an internal control panel on the site’s back end, appear to show that Twitter marks user accounts with tags such as “Trends Blacklist,”“Search Blacklist” and “Compromised.” The visuals were first reported by Motherboard on Wednesday evening, soon followed up by CNet, who also said it had obtained copies of the images.
RT
© Twitter / Allum Bokhari / screenshot
Citing privacy violations, Twitter has reportedly scrambled to cleanse the site of posts featuring the screenshots.
Responding to the leaked images, the company claimed that it has always been upfront about the fact that tweets and accounts are monitored for “quality” and can be prevented from trending if found to be creating a “bad search experience.” However, critics noted that the screenshots suggest that this process can be done manually, opening the door to potential abuse.
The platform has long maintained that it does not ‘shadow ban’ users – or limit the reach of accounts in lieu of an explicit ban – but the allegedly leaked images have generated a whirlwind of speculation that it does engage in the practice after all. Conservative users in particular were up in arms over the reports, with right-leaning pundit Mike Cernovich accusing the company of editing content “manually” to weed out certain political viewpoints.
