
Ask HN: What are your thought on online communities using shadow banning? - HN-Censorship
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new_guy
It's extremely useful to isolate people from the wider community, and if you
do it properly it's not detectable. It definitely has its place, but it's just
a tool and can be misused like any other tool.

If you get a guy creepily flirting with every female that signs up and making
them leave the site, hide his comments on profiles of females he's not friends
with, if you've got a spammer that is trying to give away 'free trump gear',
then make their posts only visible to them, if you've got a group trying to
police your site by looking for 'socks' just make all their posts invisible to
other members etc.

Straight up banning people only works as a last resort, they'll trash your
network to anyone who listens, or worse set up a rival etc.

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ydb
> It's extremely useful to isolate people from the wider community, and if you
> do it properly it's not detectable. It definitely has its place

Absolutely agreed -- consider the impact of Russian bots on the 2016 U.S.
elections. There will always be malicious actors in every social system. If
you do not isolate them, their perverse ideas will spread like a cancer
through the population.

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drenvuk
Easily circumvented if you care. Call them out on it if you do. First and
foremost, don't be a dick.

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larnmar
Shadowbanning is reasonable and appropriate against bots, but a massive dick
move when applied to humans.

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pdfbadforunicod
I think it's insulting (not just to the one shadow banned) and high handed.

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Porthos9K
Just grow some balls and publicly ban people.

