Dori: Was Twitter shadow-banning you – or me?

Something weird went down for me on Twitter this week and I’m not sure if it’s because of Dori Monson Show listeners – or me.

While I was on a short vacation a few days ago, I tried unplugging as much as possible. That meant only occasional checks on my email. Cursory reads on news sites. A text or two to my daughters. Face-to-face talking to my wife.

Elon Musk to buy Twitter for $44B and take it private

Imagine my surprise when I looked at Twitter Monday night and found my account popping faster than Rice Krispies in milk.

Even though I have seriously cut back from tweeting and post only occasionally now, I was fortunate to have about 19,800 followers as of last Sunday – one day before Elon Musk’s reported $44 billion takeover of Twitter took news sites by storm.

By mid-day Friday, I had 21,231 followers. Admittedly, I’m no techno-wizard – but I have to admit: this was crazy.

It took 12 years to get 19,000 Twitter followers. It took just three days to get 1,500 more.

My numbers were small in comparison. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis “gained” 205,695 followers between Monday and Wednesday. Podcaster Joe Rogan tallied an almost 135,000 bump.

Was it – as Twitter had been denying for at least two years – because of “shadow-banning” – an algorithm practice that social media giants denied was occurring?

Whether you call it shadow-banning, stealth banning or ghost banning, was this an example of a behemoth social media company restricting the reach of a user’s account? Or was it limiting potential followers their opportunity to follow conservative Twitter users that the far left didn’t like?

And if so, was it Twitter banning me? Or banning my listeners from having you as followers?

Some in the media are digging into the possibility that Twitter employees were liberal gatekeepers who – on their way out the door before Musk took over – removed barriers to conservative users. Why? To deny that barriers existed in the first place.

Me? I’m just happy to have freedom of speech on the radio with open-minded people who agree and disagree.

Maybe now that will return to Twitter.

Listen to Dori Monson weekday afternoons from noon – 3 p.m. on KIRO Newsradio, 97.3 FM. Subscribe to the podcast here.