The use and history of "shadow banning", "ghosting" or making a user "invisible" goes way back to some of the first forum platforms that have this feature in the AdminCp, available to deploy on any unsuspecting member. I think there's an argument for the use and misuse of this feature. Lately, the news on Twitter is that shadow banning was used often since Musk has taken over Twitter, despite what was said "under oath" by Jack Dorsey and others. Twitter officials  stated they didn't shadow ban.

Shadow Banning- What is it and who uses it.

Shadow banning occurs when your posts or activity aren’t viewable to other users, but you haven’t received an official ban or notification. In most cases, the user can still see their own content and have no idea no one else can see their posts.

If I recall, both xenForo and vBulletin forum software allows for shadow banning. My SE platform does not.

You either confront the member with the issue, come to a good point of understanding or if that's not possible, then you have to go to plan B, suspension or ban. Admin should base their decisions on their TOS, then the decision has to be made whether the member deserves a suspension or full ban.

While I'm on this roll of sharing my opinion on shadow banning, I'd like to suggest to Musk that if he really wanted to have the best moderation, the best advisement for how to moderate members fairly, professionally and with a sense of grace, then I'd advise him to talk to the real people that know how it gets done. That would be all of the webmasters, web-developers, and website admins that have been moderating for a long time over many years of change too. If I had the opportunity to advise Twitter/Musk, those are the people I would recommend for consultations on Terms of Service, Boiler Plate Rules, Privacy rules and how to handle the most difficult of situations. Really, it's pretty simple. *Side note- all websites should have Terms of Service and Privacy rules written by a legal entity.

When you take out all of the junk in rules, the base rules of no bullying, name calling, no antisemitism, no racism, debate nicely etc. that's really all you need. Let people talk, debate and on what topics are important to them and make nice with each other at the end of a controversial topic and then it's all good. All of these big media websites have gone too far in manipulating what could be great organic conversation.

That's interesting! I had never heard of Shadow Banning before I read this.

Mark Ransome said: That's interesting! I had never heard of Shadow Banning before I read this.
Shadow Banning is a fairly diabolical tool in a webmasters toolkit if the platform allows it. I'm of the same mind as you, there's nothing that can replace conflict resolution through cool-headed conversation (referring to your rules on Special Trusted Friends; very good). Grant it, it doesn't always turn out well (been there in past websites) but the attempt to resolve a member issue through conversation can sometimes be a game changer, more from the member's stand point. Admin wins by diffusing an issue, the member wins by not getting a suspended account and likely maybe the member even learns something good about conflict resolution that can be applied in real life? I'm always hopeful our websites offer more then conversation, but also little positive real-life-nuggets too.

To me, Shadow banning, is like playing a joke on an unsuspecting person and everyone in the room as laughing at this person. Maybe the only reason to deploy it is in terms of inappropriate posts or bad online behavior that breaks the TOS, but then, as admins, we can moderate and delete posts, so I still go back to, is there any reason to shadow ban a member?

Re you referring to my Forum Rules or my main TOS?

Mark Ransome said: Re you referring to my Forum Rules or my main TOS? I liked your Forum Rules.....I thought they were well thought out and fair. Your STF-TOS is excellent, as well.

Thank you, I suppose not bad for a novice!

Really good rules, which also shares your personal principles by how you designed your rules....says a lot about a good Website founder/Webmaster/Admin.

Hey stop it now or my head will too big to get out the door!