Report: Twitter Hiding Certain Accounts From Search Results, Users

Twitter has been "shadowbanning" certain users whose opinions editors do not agree with — even going so far as maintaining separate lists of favored accounts and ones that are not, according to a Breitbart News report.

According to a source inside the company, Twitter maintains a "whitelist" of endorsed accounts and a "blacklist" of unfavored ones, Breitbart reports.

The accounts supported by Twitter receive priority in search results, whereas posts on the "blacklist" are hidden from users' timelines and search results.

Breitbart said that a senior editor at a major digital publisher confirmed the information, cautioning that he feared that his tweets could be blocked if he attracted the company's ire for speaking on the issue.

Under shadowbanning, online community managers block content from spammers, according to the report. The method simply hides posts from public view, versus blocking a user directly.

Blocking notifies spammers that their posts can no longer be seen, leading them to create new accounts, Breitbart reports.

Related Stories:

• Twitter Suffers Widespread Outage
• Facebook Creates 'Counter Speech' Tools to Fight Terrorism