Shadow ordering

Shadow ordering is a variant of shadowban. Instead of hiding your posts completely, a social media platform will send them to the ends of lists where few are likely to see them. At the same time, they lie to you: tricking you into thinking your posts are doing better than they are.

For instance, when you leave a reply on Twitter and then look at the reply page, your reply will be right at the top. However, if you then look at the same page while logged in to another account, you might need to scroll page after page to see your reply.

In some cases, you might need to click 'Show more replies' to find your reply. Twitter calls tweets after that link 'LowQuality'. They have a second 'AbusiveQuality' section even further down.

Only in rare cases does any of this make sense. Twitter usually elevates low-content replies while suppressing higher-quality content. Their ranking is based more on popularity, the number of people who block you, a desire to protect verified users from dissent, etc. Only in some cases is this based on ideology: in the USA, both liberals and conservatives are heavily impacted by shadow ordering.

"Look, my reply to the GOP is at the top of the list!"
"Uh, no. I'm logged in to my account and I had to scroll 20 pages to see your tweet. They tricked you using shadow ordering."

Shadow ordering by 24Ahead January 6, 2023