A profile on Twitter Shadowban: an AI ethics position paper on free-speech

Abstract

Concerns have been expressed lately about content verification algorithms on social media platforms, resulting in data being presented to users or omitted from them. Twitter is one of those platforms that use this strategy, giving censorship strategies for specific content. The shadowban or practice of limiting content distribution without user acknowledgement is a current practice in online social networks, especially on Twitter. So, this paper is an AI Ethics position paper willing to expand the reflection about the impacts of programming artefacts on individual liberties in enterprise’s Online social networks (OSN) to the computer science public. The conclusion to be drawn is that the limits of speech are to be imposed by the state after a properly democratic process took place [4]. The concern then turns into an international relations issue as it would be a threat for national sovereignty that one state, even inadvertently, regulates the actions of a communication enterprise on foreign states. Finally, the use of smart contracts is suggested as an alternative to be used by the base state for enforcing regulations on foreign OSNs.