In one sentence
Cognitive liberty is the right to hear and be heard—to inquire lawfully without prejudgment, make knowledge, share ideas, discover disagreement and contest information systems that unjustifiably obscure relevant perspectives.
What do we mean by shadowbanning?
The term is used for reduced visibility without a clear notice or explanation. Because it is applied inconsistently, a missing result or low audience reach should not automatically be called deliberate shadowbanning. Visibility can also be affected by crawling rules, broken links, indexing, recency, relevance, quality rules, user query wording, location, personalization, platform policies and AI citation selection.
A six-step test for a suspected exclusion
- Define the claim. Identify the exact URL, source, query, locale, date and expected relevant comparison.
- Check accessibility. Can a visitor or crawler reach the page, and does it return the expected content/status?
- Check indexing. Examine robots directives, canonical URLs, sitemaps and platform-specific indexing reports when available.
- Compare queries and systems. Repeat tests across phrasing, time, relevant competing sources and multiple engines without changing all variables at once.
- Separate search from AI behavior. A page indexed in a search engine is not necessarily chosen for an AI answer; training inclusion is a different question again.
- Document, appeal, retest. Preserve observations, request specific explanations or corrections where possible, and publish the evidence with limitations.
The accountability standard we propose
Providers should publish intelligible content rules and reasonable explanation categories, make mistakes correctable, support independent auditing, distinguish source indexing from AI citation policies, and report relevant measures of viewpoint representation. Systems should not quietly classify a lawful question as evidence of a person's moral character or ideology.
Our goal is access and contestability, not forced amplification. Evidence-based ranking, clear disagreement labels and proportionate safety restrictions can coexist with a discoverable intellectual commons.
Do not shadowban your own thoughts
Do not treat low ranking as a reason to stop creating. Publish what you can substantiate; link to other people; seek critiques and corrections; make original sources accessible. Accountability is both a demand on intermediaries and a commitment by publishers to honest, verifiable work.
Keep the conversation open
Explore the full public research collection, follow independent sources and compare competing perspectives. Use the full omission-audit guide.