I had my doubts, but when Elon bought Twitter and brought back many of the so-called controversial voices, I also had my hopes. Over the last few weeks, however, more and more people are reporting mass shadow-banning of accounts that critically discuss developments in Germany.

My account is by no means large—I’ve gathered around 900 followers, most of whom are primarily looking for a refollow. But I have a blue checkmark, which I pay for to support Elon’s attempt at creating a free speech platform. With that checkmark, a “response boost” is promised. In simple terms, accounts with a blue checkmark should appear first under tweets, while those without appear later. I once read that it’s a threefold boost; others say fivefold. I’m not sure which is correct, but a boost was definitely advertised when subscribed two years ago.

Yesterday, I went over several responses I posted the past few days and found some with only a single impression (which should have been my own). How is it possible to get such low visibility when a boost is promised? And how is it possible to get so few impressions when you have 900 followers?

I’m not expecting thousands of impressions, but getting just one is hard to explain without considering censorship and shadow-banning.

I’ve heard it’s even worse in the UK. Large US accounts are also reporting a recent sharp drop in reach.

Have the censorship overlords now reached Elon?

He made an official announcement this week that the AI algorithm is about to be updated, which should “solve some issues.” I don’t expect it to solve the problem of government censorship, though.

If things stay the way they are, Twitter is not a platform I’m going to invest much time in anymore. I might use it for posting links and “Free Book Promo” announcements and will check daily if readers reach out (you can say hi to me here). But I’m not going to create original content for Twitter without a fair playing field—something it seems German accounts not affiliated with the system do not have.

Instead, I’ll focus on writing daily for my blog (which is growing), creating video content on YouTube and Rumble, and, of course, writing short stories and books. There’s plenty of work to do there anyway.