Vinted fined 2.3 million euros for ‘shadowbanning’ + Vinted official response 

Vinted will have to pay a fine of 2.3 million euros for allegedly violating several aspects of the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The fine follows complaints from several Europeans - Germany, France, Poland, and Spain, and one of the main issues is the practice of 'shadowbanning'. As a result, the Lithuanian regulator SDPI (State Data Protection Inspectorate), where Vinted is registered, has launched an investigation against the company.

According to FashionUnited, the investigation shows that Vinted "does not adequately respect users' right to be forgotten". Vinted members have been asked to provide specific arguments to remove their personal data. If these specifics are not given, Vinted rejects the request, which is not allowed.

Furthermore, SDPI considers that "the fashion platform is not sufficiently transparent about which personal data it uses." In this context, it stresses that the platform practices 'shadowbanning'. That is, Vinted members can be excluded from Vinted without being informed. This practice is applied when the rules of behavior are violated. In such a case, users can still post items for sale, but other users cannot see their ads. SDPI considers this method "illegal."

In response to these accusations, Vinted has explained to the aforementioned media outlet, "We would like to reassure our members that the issues referred to by the Lithuanian data protection authority are in no way related to the security of their accounts nor do they involve abuse or violation of their personal data."

What exactly is Shadowbanning, and why is Vinted accused of doing it? 

Shadow banning, also called stealth banning, hell banning, ghost banning, and comment ghosting, is the practice of blocking or partially blocking a user or the user's content from some areas of an online community in such a way that the ban is not readily apparent to the user, regardless of whether the action is taken by an individual or an algorithm. For example, shadow-banned comments posted to a blog or media website would be visible to the sender, but not to other site users.

This practice is precisely what the EU authorities have accessed Vinted of doing, implying that some users have been banned without them fully knowing this. To this, Vinted has officially responded with the following: 

"We take privacy and GDPR very seriously and have invested heavily in compliance and protection of our members, collaborating throughout this process with the VDAI. However, we have found no legal basis for this decision and believe it sets a new precedent that goes beyond the current wording of the law and industry best practices. We fundamentally disagree with this fine and will continue to appeal, as we have throughout this process," the company said.

"Regarding the VDAI's decision on shadowbanning processes, which we used in the past to keep our platform and our members safe, we would like to reiterate that we no longer use these processes. We regularly evaluate these measures and adjust them to align with technological advances and changing legal regulations," they reiterated.