Twitter working on new update to inform users if they've been 'shadowbanned': Elon Musk

Twitter CEO Elon Musk has announced that the platform is working on a new software update that would inform users if they were or have been 'shadowbanned'. 

"Twitter is working on a software update that will show your true account status, so you know clearly if you’ve been shadowbanned, the reason why and how to appeal," Musk tweeted. This comes after the release of Twitter Files Part 2 which made explosive revelations about Twitter's policy on censorship and account bans. 

Part 2 of Twitter files revealed

Journalist Bari Weiss, who is investigating the happenings in the company before Musk's takeover, revealed the second part of the Twitter files where she made new revelations about how several tweets of users and often the entire trending topic was prevented from reaching the public. So far, Weiss along with her colleague Matt Taibii has publicly released many inside information about the functioning of the company and its role in matters where it did not belong. 

Before Musk's acquisition, Twitter was infamous for its alleged practice of suppressing or banning accounts based on ideologies. One of the examples, according to Twitter Files part one, is that Democrats would send emails to the company about tweets that were against the interest of the Democratic party and Twitter would respond by writing "we'll handle them".

In the second part of the investigation, Weiss revealed that Twitter used to blacklist certain accounts and the company even had a team comprising former CEOs Jack Dorsey and Parag Agrawal who would oversee these activities. On the contrary, Vijaya Gadde, Twitter's former Head of Legal Policy and Trust, and Kayvon Beykpour, Head of Product, had said back in 2018, "We do not shadow ban,” they said per Weiss. “And we certainly don’t shadow ban based on political viewpoints or ideology.” The investigation into what went behind Twitter before Elon Musk's takeover is still underway and a lot is still left to be unveiled, the investigators say.