{ "_description": "Generated from data/ — edit the sources, not this file. The agent access guide explains the evidence boundary of every field.", "schemaVersion": "1.0.0", "kind": "entry", "locale": "en", "id": "shadow-banning", "name": { "zh": "隐形限流", "en": "Shadow Banning" }, "page": "https://designvocabulary.com/en/entries/shadow-banning/", "self": "https://designvocabulary.com/en/entries/shadow-banning.json", "alternates": { "zh-CN": "https://designvocabulary.com/zh/entries/shadow-banning.json", "en": "https://designvocabulary.com/en/entries/shadow-banning.json" }, "site": { "catalogSchemaVersion": "0.1.0", "entries": 158, "index": "https://designvocabulary.com/en/entries/index.json", "query": "https://designvocabulary.com/api/query?lang=en", "guide": "https://designvocabulary.com/en/agents/", "llms": "https://designvocabulary.com/llms.txt" }, "provenance": { "sourceBacked": [ "entry.definition" ], "editorial": [ "entry.boundary", "entry.signature", "entry.when", "entry.when_not", "entry.tradeoff", "entry.comparison", "entry.rules", "entry.relations", "entry.implementationNote", "entry.anti" ], "scope": "Definitions reference these sources. Digital specimens, selection advice, relationships, and recipes are editorial work and have not been validated through user research.", "editorialStatus": "drafted", "specimenData": "fictional", "specimenNote": "Original fictional specimens. Definitions cite sources; usage advice and recipes are editorial.", "sources": [ { "id": "shadowban-dsa-art17", "url": "https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2022/2065/oj/eng", "title": "EUR-Lex · Regulation (EU) 2022/2065 (Digital Services Act), Article 17: Statement of reasons", "checkedAt": "2026-10-20", "archive": { "status": "unconfirmed", "confirmed": false, "url": null, "capturedAt": null, "lookupUrl": "https://web.archive.org/web/20261020*/https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2022/2065/oj/eng" } }, { "id": "shadowban-wikipedia", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_banning", "title": "Wikipedia · Shadow banning", "checkedAt": "2026-10-20", "archive": { "status": "unconfirmed", "confirmed": false, "url": null, "capturedAt": null, "lookupUrl": "https://web.archive.org/web/20261020*/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_banning" } } ], "lists": [], "ordered": false, "listDisclaimer": "Seat numbers are editorial positions, not scores, rankings, or popularity measurements. A list that is not filled is left as it is." }, "entry": { "id": "shadow-banning", "type": "anti", "name": { "zh": "隐形限流", "en": "Shadow Banning" }, "aliases": [ "Stealth Banning", "Ghost Banning", "Hellbanning", "影子封禁", "暗中限流" ], "granularity": "experience", "intents": [ "audit-choice", "assess-impact" ], "tags": [ "anti-pattern", "content moderation", "visibility", "notice", "appeal" ], "definition": "A platform narrows the reach of someone’s content or account without telling them: they keep posting and keep seeing their own content, and the interface looks normal to them, but other people see it rarely or not at all.", "boundary": "This entry targets limiting visibility without telling the person affected, not content moderation as such: removal, demotion, and reduced distribution can all have legitimate grounds. The difference is notice — a demotion whose type, reason, and appeal route are stated to the person does not belong here. It also differs from the ordinary low reach a ranking algorithm produces: only when a platform has imposed a restriction on a specific user or piece of content while showing that person an unchanged interface does this entry apply. The entry makes no judgment about whether any particular platform does this. For bulk spam and abusive accounts, platforms often argue that notice would help evasion; the entry acknowledges that tension but holds that silence should be a bounded, recorded exception rather than the default.", "signature": [ "Posting reports success, yet from other people’s view the content is invisible or clearly pushed down", "The person affected sees no sign of a restriction and no route to appeal", "The person can only discover the limit indirectly, by switching accounts or asking others to look" ], "when": [ "Auditing whether a platform’s moderation and distribution apply restrictions without telling the people affected", "Designing the notice, statement of reasons, and appeal flow for content restrictions" ], "when_not": [ "As the default way to handle ordinary violations", "Withholding explanation for every restriction on the grounds that notice could be evaded" ], "tradeoff": "The repair is to make restrictions visible to the person affected: which content is limited and how, under which rule, for how long, and how to appeal. The cost is that some abusers will adjust their behavior and moderation teams take on more communication and appeals; accounts that really are bulk spam can be handled under separate rules, but those rules belong in published policy rather than in an invisible exception.", "comparison": { "focus": "Narrowing the reach of content without the person knowing", "mechanism": "Showing the person an unchanged interface while hiding or demoting their content for everyone else", "cost": "The person cannot appeal or correct anything, and both readers and authors lose trust in the platform" }, "sources": [ { "id": "shadowban-dsa-art17", "title": "EUR-Lex · Regulation (EU) 2022/2065 (Digital Services Act), Article 17: Statement of reasons", "url": "https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2022/2065/oj/eng", "claim": "Article 17(1) of the EU Digital Services Act, adopted on 19 October 2022, requires providers of hosting services to give affected recipients a “clear and specific statement of reasons” for restrictions imposed on the ground that content is illegal or incompatible with their terms and conditions; the restrictions listed include any restriction of the visibility of specific items of information (including removal, disabling access, or demotion), suspension or termination of monetary payments, suspension or termination of the service in whole or in part, and suspension or termination of the account. Article 17(3) sets out the minimum content: the type of decision, the facts and circumstances relied on, whether automated means were used, the legal or contractual ground, and the available redress. Article 17(2) limits the duty to cases where the provider knows the relevant electronic contact details and excludes deceptive high-volume commercial content. This entry cites it to show that, where the Act applies, unannounced demotion conflicts with a statutory duty to give reasons; scope and exceptions remain with the legal text.", "checkedAt": "2026-10-20", "archive": { "lookupUrl": "https://web.archive.org/web/20261020*/https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2022/2065/oj/eng", "status": "unconfirmed", "checkedAt": "2026-10-20T08:00:27.016Z", "error": "save-request-failed" } }, { "id": "shadowban-wikipedia", "title": "Wikipedia · Shadow banning", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_banning", "claim": "The article describes shadow banning (also stealth banning, hellbanning, ghost banning, or comment ghosting) as restricting a user or their content in an online community in a way the user does not readily notice, carried out by people or by algorithms; the user can usually still see their own posts while others cannot. It traces similar features back to 1980s bulletin board systems and states that the statement-of-reasons requirement in DSA Article 17 effectively prohibits the practice, while noting that enforcement often falls short. This entry paraphrases its definition; the view on the DSA’s effect is the article’s, not a legal conclusion.", "checkedAt": "2026-10-20", "archive": { "lookupUrl": "https://web.archive.org/web/20261020*/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_banning", "status": "unconfirmed", "checkedAt": "2026-10-20T08:00:27.708Z", "error": "save-request-failed" } } ], "relations": [ { "target": "visibility-of-system-status", "kind": "conflicts_when", "condition": "A platform has restricted the visibility of a person’s content", "reason": "Showing that person an interface where everything looks normal hides the system’s state from precisely the person most affected by it.", "basis": "editorial" }, { "target": "explainability", "kind": "conflicts_when", "condition": "The person wants to know why their content is not being shown", "reason": "Without a statement of reasons they can neither judge whether they broke a rule nor correct it or appeal in a targeted way.", "basis": "editorial" }, { "target": "trust-calibration", "kind": "conflicts_when", "condition": "Users start to suspect unannounced restrictions", "reason": "Once a suspicion can be neither confirmed nor ruled out, authors attribute any low reach to hidden limits and lower their trust in the whole platform.", "basis": "editorial" }, { "target": "status-message", "kind": "alternative", "condition": "A platform genuinely needs to limit the distribution of some content or an account", "reason": "A clear status message telling the person what is restricted, why, and how to appeal is the most direct alternative to doing it invisibly.", "basis": "editorial" } ], "rules": [ { "when": "A platform restricts the visibility of a user’s content or account", "instruction": "Tell the person the type, scope, and grounds of the restriction and how to appeal; where the Digital Services Act applies, this is a duty under Article 17.", "strength": "must", "basis": "editorial" }, { "when": "There is a real reason not to notify certain accounts, such as bulk spam", "instruction": "Write that exception into published policy with a defined scope, record every decision, and review regularly whether it is still needed.", "strength": "recommend", "basis": "editorial" } ], "anti": { "harm": "People lose their audience without knowing it and cannot appeal or correct anything; authors cannot tell why their reach is low, and trust in the platform falls across the board", "repair": "Make restrictions visible to the person affected: state the type, scope, grounds, duration, and appeal route; put any necessary no-notice exception into published policy, record it, and review it." }, "demo": null, "version": "0.1.0", "editorialStatus": "drafted", "requirements": [], "demoCapabilities": [], "implementationNote": "This is a warning entry and not a recommendation, and it makes no judgment about whether any particular platform uses the practice; the posts and accounts in the illustration are invented. When auditing a platform, view the same restricted item from the author’s side and from another user’s side, and check whether the difference between the two has been disclosed.", "image": { "src": "/images/shadow-banning.webp", "alt": "A sketch: two side-by-side panels of a fictional feed. On the left, the author’s view shows a post card marked FIELDNOTES displayed normally with a posted-successfully check mark; on the right, another user’s view shows only a dashed empty slot in the same place; a translucent frosted screen stands between the two panels." }, "searchTerms": [ "反模式", "内容审核", "可见性", "告知", "申诉" ] } }