I am aware that there are countless online scams. Like lots of people, I get scam emails of all kinds every week and ignore them. I haven’t been successfully scammed for many years.
Recently, however, I got blindsided in a way I was not expecting. It was novel and involved (apparently) coordination by more than one perpetrator. I’m passing the story on, both as an admission, and as a warning to others.
I have been ruthlessly shadowbanned on Twitter/X for three years now. I wrote a short post about it in 2021. I had over 22K followers back then, and have 25K now, but, based on my previous rate of growth, it should have been up to 70K or so, had the shadowban not been imposed.
Last year, I spotted a very important news story just as it was breaking. I immediately posted it on Twitter. It got 1 RT (retweet) and 0 likes. About two hours later, others on Twitter began posting the story, and people with far fewer followers than me were getting hundreds and thousands of RTs on the very same news story, even using the identical link as I had.
I have tried contacting Twitter Support about the shadowban, with no response. I had hopes that Elon Musk’s alleged devotion to free speech would alleviate the situation, but it didn’t. Musk’s choice for Twitter/X CEO, Linda Yaccarino of the World Economic Forum, has stated that the platform won’t limit your “speech,” just your “reach.” My reach is virtually zero, even though I post nothing that is racist, violent, pornographic, or (knowingly) “fake news.”
I posted a Tweet remarking on the situation a couple of weeks ago. It received some sympathetic replies from some of my “followers” who expressed similar frustration with Twitter Support. They mentioned the moniker of a guy connected with Twitter Support who could remedy the situation—he had, they said, fixed their own shadowbans.
Thinking this might be a glimmer of hope, I contacted him. He said he could do it and that the service would cost $100. I thought that was reasonable and paid it.
After a while, he said the situation was all set—I just needed to pay $350 to complete the process. This was a huge red flag. He had never said anything before about extra money. It was a variation on the classic “bait and switch.”
I had many conversations with him resisting this. He gave me various explanations and sounded pretty credible. He said that my Twitter account was large, that he had needed to install certain software, etc. I checked online to see if anyone using his moniker had ever scammed anyone. That search came up empty. Finally, I gave in and reluctantly paid the $350. He said the shadowban was now fixed.
I went to Twitter to check it out. I reannounced the publication of my new book on the Lincoln assassination, knowing that few people on Twitter had ever seen it. The reannouncement got exactly 1 RT from over 25,000 followers.
With the (questionable) news having just come out that Hell’s Angels were traveling to Aurora, Colorado to battle the Venezuelan gangs that were seizing apartment buildings there, I created the following meme:
It got 0 RTs from over 25K followers.
I announced that I was to appear on the highly popular show Awake Nation TV. It got one RT—from me.
I could give more examples, but I quickly realized that the whole “lift the shadowban” operation was nothing but a con game. The only tangible work the man had done was to collect my money. Believe it or not, he asked for even more money, which, of course, he never got.
I then also realized that the people who had replied to my Tweet by directing me to this man were what scammers call “ropers.” Their job was to point the “mark” (me) to the con man, who would then take my money, and probably split it with them.
For all I know, the “ropers” may have been one individual using multiple accounts.
In retrospect, I should have been far more cautious, asking proof from the “ropers” that they had accounts that were really un-shadowbanned. But at the time they appeared to be followers who were acting as Good Samaritans, and I didn’t want to convey hostile suspicion.
After realizing I’d been scammed, I went to block the “ropers” from following me on Twitter, but found that all but two had already vanished; they had deleted their replies to my original Tweet. I blocked the remaining ones, and (so that no one else could get hurt by it) deleted the original Tweet, keeping a copy for my records.
I am omitting the con man’s moniker. By now he is probably operating under another name, in search of new suckers. In fact, the name of another “tech expert” had already been sent as a reply to my Tweet before I deleted it. He likely has bots out combing Twitter for the phrase “shadowban.”
Please note: I am publishing this blog post on September 10, 2024. I always post a very large number of relevant Tweets on the anniversary of 9/11. For a couple of days, this should result in an uptick in the number of RTs I get, but—just so there is no confusion—this is something that I briefly see every year; it is not from my shadowban being remedied.
Some may wonder why I don’t attempt to recover my $450 from the financial platform I used to send it. Well, that would be quite a process—I wasn’t purchasing an official, invoiced service from a legitimate company, and I was seeking to “fix” a problem through unorthodox methods. I think the best way for me to rectify the loss is to use it to warn others not to fall into the same trap. There are plenty of us who desire to remove our shadowbans so that we can recover our freedom of speech—and there are also unscrupulous individuals out there who are willing to exploit that desire for their own personal gain.
I cannot state categorically that there is no such thing as a cyber-wizard who can lift a shadowban. But the lesson I learned is: Use the absolute, utmost caution when approached by anyone who says they are—or know—a “tech insider” who claims they can do this.
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