Congress MP Shashi Tharoor recently revealed concerns over his X (formerly Twitter) account, which he suspected was ‘shadow-banned.’ Tharoor shared his experience in a detailed response to a user who questioned why his follower count has remained static at around 8.4 million for years, despite his widespread popularity.
The Thiruvananthapuram MP recounted, “This has been the case for four years! A source at the old Twitter India told me there was a problem he couldn’t understand. Reviewing my daily stats for six months, he observed a curious pattern — over 1,000 new followers daily, 60-70 unfollows, but my total followers never crossed 8.495 million.”
The source attributed the issue to an “algorithm glitch” but left the company without resolving it, Tharoor said.
Tharoor explained his suspicion of being shadow-banned a practice where a user’s content is subtly restricted or hidden without their knowledge. He said, “My account is never ‘suggested’ to follow, and many followers complain they don’t see my posts on their timeline. It seemed plausible I was shadow-banned.”
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Acting on his concerns, Tharoor wrote directly to Elon Musk, the platform’s billionaire owner. However, his inquiry elicited a response from Musk‘s legal team, denying any such issue. “The only practical consequence of my inquiry,” Tharoor lamented, “is that my follower count now drops unsteadily each day — from a peak of 8.495m to 8.429m today.”
Tharoor decided to go public with the matter after noticing growing questions from users about his stagnant follower count. He commented, “There’s clearly something wrong, but those managing X in India don’t seem to care.”
The incident has reignited discussions on transparency in social media algorithms and the accountability of platforms towards their users.
