Now Andrea Conway, who works as a designer at X, presented a preview of this feature, which Elon Musk first promised last year. However, accounts that share “sensitive content” will be tagged and restricted from search, recommendations, and other features.Notification for restricted accounts
Andrea Conway shared two examples: a warning in the notifications tab and an informational page explaining why X may limit the visibility of some accounts. “We have detected that your account has the potential to contain sensitive media – such as imagery, violence, nudity, sexual conduct, hateful symbols or other sensitive content,” the page states.
X says you can hide posts with a warning so that people who don’t want to see sensitive content can avoid it, restrict access to your account and its content, and even exclude that post from your Personal and Following timelines, suggested notifications, trends, and search results.
X also includes an objection button at the bottom of this message, so users can request that X reconsider its initial decision. Conway also said users will be able to view their account status outside of the app’s notifications tab, but did not elaborate on how that would happen. Conway also added that the interface has not been finalized yet.
The company had previously introduced a tagging feature for tweets that were “visibility limited” for violating its rules. However, the latest update will take this one step further because restrictions will be visible not only for specific tweets but also at the account level.
old but new
The company has been limiting the access of accounts that violate its rules for years. Under Twitter’s previous administration, this practice was known as “visibility filtering.” However, the company did not publicly share details about this practice or which accounts it limited, fueling conspiracy theories about “shadow bans.”The issue came to the fore again after Musk gave internal emails and other company records to independent journalists last year, and recordings of Twitter executives discussing visibility filtering were published. Musk later promised that a future update will “show your actual account status, so you’ll clearly know if you’ve been shadowbanned, why, and how to appeal.”
Of course, visibility filtering and “shadowbanning” have never been quite the same thing. For years, Twitter has used shadowbanning to “intentionally make a person’s content undiscoverable to anyone except the sender, without the original sender knowing.” Whereas visibility filtering — led by both Jack Dorsey and now Musk — hides tweets from search, suggestions, and other surfaces, but doesn’t make them completely invisible.
In any case, the upcoming update will add some more transparency to the app. It’s unclear when the feature will be officially available, but Conway said the company will “share more information about it soon.”
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