As often, there’s been continuous talk on the shadowban and assorted theories on how to beat it or avoid it.

This doesn’t help that it seems a fair few sex workers, and others from the adult industry, awoke on Friday morning asking to verify their Twitter account with a phone number.

While on one hand, this seems like another purge/attack on the industry. It is more likely to be a sweep aimed at picking up those who are suspected of being bots.

In fact – Twitter blogged about a purge themselves

And assorted (albeit, lesser) news outlets picked it up. (Fox business)

Obviously. I don’t want to downplay any fears that sex workers may have – the most simple advice I’ve given in the past is Don’t over rely on one platform – however, some of this seems routine – rather than an industry specific purge or attack.

Incidentally.
I fell down a little rabbit hole of Twitter T+Cs. I want to simplify some of my finds for you – although some of this is paraphrasing and my interpretation of their rules.

It seems there are things we do as routine, possibly even in attempt to fight the shadowban, that increase the risk of our accounts being affected.

THE ADULT POLICY

I read and reread the ‘Sensitive Media Policy‘

The things I took from it are.

Adult content is generally permitted within Tweets – however, subject to the following restrictions.
– You must mark you profile as posting sensitive content (do that here )
– “Violent Sexual Content” is completely forbidden – to simplify : rape or anything which suggests the activity was not consensual.
– no sexual content in profile picture, header picture or in any live videos.
– sending people content against their consent is also not allowed (this means if you are sent a dick pic – this is not consensual… as we obviously know, but they’re confirming that)

What was also fairly interesting to read

– The first offence for inappropriate pics in header/profile pic is it is removed. The second offence is you are removed.
– If your account is dedicated to – or mostly shares – sensitive content then there is a risk of restricting or suspending the account.

– If your account is suspended appeal here

PLATFORM MANIPULATION AND SPAMMING

The Platform Manipulation and Spam Policy  was last updated in March, so recent by the shape of things.

This one is chunky – and is possibly a reason why a lot of people are shadowbanned.

There were some more obvious things than others within this

– Excessive hashtags

no measure on what constitutes as “excessive”

– Following a large number of accounts in a small time period
and
– duplicating another account’s followers

So, if you are setting up a new or back-up account and start following lots of accounts OR are going through your own (or someone else’s) follower list with a new account. Expect to be shadowbanned.

This then makes all the “set up a new account” very counterproductive because it is very quickly going to get banned or restricted again.

– repeatedly posting identical or nearly identical Tweets

Some of this does tie in with some comments I have coming on automation – but if you keep repeating the same posts (I’m not sure what constitutes as “repeatedly” expect to be shadowbanned.
“I’m online now”, “I sold a clip”, “Good Morning Mistress”

– reciprocal inflation – trading or coordinating to exchange follows or Tweet engagements (including but not limited to participation in “follow trains,” “decks,” and “Retweet for Retweet” behavior)

So, this also suggests if you are tagging retweet accounts this is likely to fall under both “nearly identical tweets” and reciprocal inflation – so retweet accounts are seemingly counter productive.

But, also – if you are a Mistress and have subs with accounts dedicated to you – this is also counter productive : if they are retweeting you (and each other) and you are retweeting their posts about you – then this is going to get you flagged.

See also other points in the Twitter rules which backs this up including :

– creating multiple accounts to post duplicate content
– operating multiple accounts that interact with one another in order to inflate or manipulate the prominence of specific Tweets or accounts
– operating multiple accounts with overlapping use cases, such as identical or similar personas or substantially similar content
– engaging (Retweets, Likes, mentions, Twitter Poll votes) repeatedly with the same Tweets or accounts

AUTOMATION RULES

Twitter Automation Rules

This is potentially one of the most important bits.

The first paragraph is about all I need to reference :

You are ultimately responsible for the actions taken with your account, or by applications associated with your account. Before authorising a third-party application to access or use your account, make sure you’ve thoroughly investigated the application and understand what it will do. If automated activity on your account violates the Twitter Rules or these automation rules, Twitter may take action on your account, including filtering your Tweets from search results or suspending your account.

Which, again, pretty much ultimately confirms that you will be shadowbanned for breaching rules via automation.

The most likely culprits are…

SALES TWEETS

Especially if you sell the same clip a few times, or have a daily “I sold a big clip order” tweets. These would come under repeated posting of duplicate content.

I’M ONLINE TWEETS

Adultwork, Niteflirt, etc. again, it’s repeating the same content repeatedly.

DAILY VOTES

You know the types – where you can cast a vote for someone every 24 hours and there’s a “bonus” if you also Tweet… well… it’s a repeated post, isn’t it?

LOOPED AUTOMATED POSTS

This is actually something I was looking into doing but glad I didn’t. A great thing about assorted apps (including some owned by Twitter) is you can schedule posts in advance and that’s great – it’s often a lifesaver. I mean, imagine as part of weekly admin you could queue up things for the week so you didn’t have to worry about them going out if you were in session, filming, forgot…
But… (a) some people just re-queue the same posts each week (b) there are third party apps which will let you loop the same posts.
So, again, frequently making the same content likely to hit you with restrictions.

BUT THESE ARE GOOD FOR ME…

And that, is the balance.
If on one hand the automated tweets, the retweet groups, so on… are good for you overall. Are they better, or worse, than being picked up a potential bot and/or shadowbanned?
Is a rising follower count more or less important to you?

That, perhaps, knowing the symptoms can help let you know if you give a shit or not.

IN SUMMARY

If you wish to reduce the risk of being shadowbanned, things to start doing.

– Restrict / Turn Off Sales Tweets and “I’m online” tweets.
– Stop tagging RT accounts (they’re counter productive anyway)
– Avoid / Restrict hashtags
– Encourage your subs to have personal accounts, and interact with other users, rather than ones dedicated to you.
– Try to engage with other users other than just focusing on your own promotion (changes the ratio of sensitive posts vs content)
– Remember starting new accounts is counter productive

If you are shadowbanned and can’t or don’t want to do the above : I wrote a blog previously here