X, formerly known as Twitter, said the ban was a mistake and that it will be updating its procedures.
Previously, X had also restricted the visibility of Navalnaya’s account. A shadow ban test indicated her tweets were hidden from search outcomes.
Shadow banning is an opaque practice employed by many social media networks, including X, in which accounts are not specifically banned but their visibility is reduced.
Non-subscribers searching for Navalnaya found her profile omitted from recommendations. Furthermore, replies to her messages did not display her original tweets, POLITICO confirmed through testing.
Social media users have previously reported being placed under search bans for sudden spikes in followers on new accounts. Navalnaya’s rapid follower increase — to nearly 100,000 in a single day with three posts — could have triggered the platform’s automated moderation.
In a post, X’s safety team said: “Our platform’s defense mechanism against manipulation and spam mistakenly flagged @yulia_navalnaya as violating our rules. We unsuspended the account as soon as we became aware of the error, and will be updating the defense.”
