News

X Previews Long-Awaited “Shadowban” Alerts

Accounts sharing “sensitive content” will be labeled and restricted from searches and recommendations.

Published

3 years ago

September 27, 2023

x previews long-awaited shadowban alerts

X, formerly Twitter, is moving a stage closer to adding a long-promised feature that notifies users when their account becomes “shadowbanned.” Andrea Conway, one of the developers at X, previewed the upcoming feature first promised by controversial CEO Elon Musk last year.

“We may cover your posts with a warning so people who don’t want to see sensitive content can avoid it. The reach of your account and its content may also be restricted, such as being excluded from the For You and Following timelines, recommended notifications, trends, and search results,” said Conway.

starting transparency somewhere pic.twitter.com/QUNKga1t4I

— Andrea Conway (@ehikian) September 26, 2023

Conway displayed two mock-ups of the update: a notifications tab alert plus an informational page explaining why X may limit the visibility of certain accounts. “We have found that your account potentially contains sensitive media — such as graphic, violent, nudity, sexual behavior, hateful symbols, or other sensitive content,” it explains.

Underneath the message sits an appeal button, which users can click to request X review its initial decision. Conway also explained that users would be able to view their account status outside of the notifications tab but didn’t mention how that might work.

Also Read: The Largest Data Breaches In The Middle East

The feature tackles what has long been a controversial issue for Twitter (now X). For years, the company has limited the reach of accounts breaking its rules, sometimes without the account holders themselves being aware of the throttling.

The forthcoming update should add transparency to X’s decisions but is likely to also create further controversies and even conspiracy theories. Meanwhile, Conway said the company “should have more to share on this soon”.

News

Visa’s Return To Syria Starts With A Test And A Bank In Lebanon

Foreign visitors will be the first users to benefit, but whether Syria’s own banks and cardholders follow is still an open question.

Published

2 weeks ago

August 27, 2026

Dana Saadeh

visa's return to syria starts with a test and a bank in lebanon

Visa is returning to Syria. Its first live international card transaction in the country was a test rather than a launch, and the milestone event ran through a Lebanese bank.

The acquirer (the bank on the merchant’s side of a card payment) was Fransabank Lebanon, with Paymera as the other named partner. Nadim Moujaes, who heads a Fransabank Group subsidiary, describes the test as both the culmination of “longstanding efforts to link Syria back to international payment networks” and “the first step in a larger path”.

Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa makes the first electronic payment in Syria using a @Visa card at a store in Damascus, following the lifting of US sanctions on Syria. pic.twitter.com/lpAN7nQ6Fc

— Tech Magazine (@TechMGZN) August 27, 2026

“We are excited to have successfully tested live transactions today as we plan to enable international visitors to use their Visa cards while in Syria,” says Leila Serhan, Visa’s senior vice president and group country manager for the North Africa, Levant and Pakistan region. Although a significant first step, that plan doesn’t come with a hard date for when a visitor’s card will work normally.

Mohammed Safwat Raslan, governor of the Central Bank of Syria, says the test paves the way for international card acceptance in Syria and that maintaining strong compliance, risk management and operational controls will remain essential. Serhan likewise stresses that Visa has worked within applicable legal, regulatory and compliance requirements. For a test transaction, it seems there was a great deal of attention paid to the rules, with the entire operation being carefully managed.

Also Read: Lebanon’s 5G Era Begins With 150 Stations And A $1M Budget

The test is the latest step in a sequence that began in December 2025, when Visa announced a strategic roadmap to support Syria’s integration into the global digital economy. In February 2026 it hosted its first industry gathering of banks, ecosystem partners and policymakers in Damascus and, the same month, signed an agreement with Syria’s Ministry of Communications and Information Technology in San Francisco.

Michel Kattouah, Paymera’s CEO, called the test “the return of international card acceptance,” but while that’s positive news, there’s no word yet on when a Syrian bank will issue a Visa card to a Syrian customer.