Did Microsoft’s MSN Shadow Ban Me For a ‘Pro-Trump’ Comment?

By Phillip Swann
The TV Answer Man

I never thought it would happen to me. Never. I mean, I’m not even a political guy. I’m a TV writer. But I’m afraid it did and it has put me out of business.

Here, my dear readers, is my sad story:

Like many other small publishers, I have seen my site traffic plummet over the last few years due to Google Search’s algorithm change that elevated larger sites and marketing partners such as Reddit. Industry experts have urged niche pubs such as mine to diversity our income sources so we would be less reliant on Google which dominates the search industry.

I thought I had found a partial solution with Microsoft’s MSN news partner program which pays publishers a slice of its advertising revenue in return for running our stories on its service. Last December, I noticed from my MSN analytics that viewing recommendations from TVAnswerMan.com were particularly popular on MSN. Some stories received thousands and thousands of views. So I decided to double up on MSN and start publishing daily Best Bets for streaming and the four major networks. I would list which new shows were scheduled to be added that day and offer my picks (with some cheeky commentary) for the three to watch.

It was an instant hit. Over the first three months of this year, stories from TVAnswerMan.com collected 1.1 million views with more than 500,000 alone in January. (February and March were a bit slower due to the Olympics and March Madness.) The corresponding ad revenue was not huge, but enough that I thought I had found a way to stay in business.

But then on April 1, President Trump decided to give a primetime speech which would be covered by all four major networks.

Since it was a big event, I included the Trump speech in my ‘3 to Watch’ selections. I didn’t praise the president but I urged people to tune in, saying you never know what he might say. (You can read the article here.)

Within 24 hours, my views on MSN dropped by 90 percent. My articles were no longer highlighted on MSN pages; you couldn’t find them even if you were one of the 7,000 people who elected to follow me on the site.

The next few days, traffic fell even further. I thought it must be a technical bug of some kind so I asked Microsoft Partner Hub support for help. They responded that they were aware of traffic declines for some publishers and they were reviewing them internally.

A few more days went by and my views had fallen under 400. I used to get anywhere from 10,000 to 15,000 views a day and now I was getting 400?

I asked Microsoft support again for an update but I got the same answer. Long story short, a week later, they said my brand was suspended with no clear explanation as to why. There was a vague reference to groups of publishers being removed for ‘site quality’ but, come on, readers were loving my stories. If the stories lacked quality, why did so many people read them – and why did so many people decide to be followers?

I pressed Microsoft support for further explanation and some guidance on how I could be reinstated. Their response: You’re now “decommissioned” and we have no plans to change that decision.

After a week or so, I tried to analyze what I had done ‘wrong.’ The traffic decline came right after my viewing recommendation of the Trump speech on April 1. Could that be it? At first, I thought that was impossible. How petty would that be? But then I saw this New York Post article highlighting that Microsoft, like Apple and Google, includes almost no conservative voices in their news wires. And I recalled that I had made a snarky comment about ‘liberals’ a week before the Trump reference in a description of the CBS show, Marshals. (I didn’t actually criticize liberals but people can be touchy. You can read it here and decide for yourself.) I also remember poking fun at few times at Stephen Colbert for booking more Democratic politicos than entertainers. But, hey, I goofed on Trump a few times, too. So what can I say? I like to make fun of people.

So I thought I would ask Microsoft support if politics was behind my ‘decommissioning.’ I told them that I was researching an article on why I was dumped. To my great surprise, they suddenly said my ‘brand’ was still under review and that my account was still active.

What?! How could that be? I asked for a quick determination of the review because I wanted to write an article on this little saga.

A few hours later, they said my case was closed with no further explanation. I responded that I would have to take that as a no comment for my article and they came back with this:

“We would like to let you know that your brand is currently going through a routine internal review, which means publishing has been temporarily paused. This is part of Microsoft’s ongoing work to ensure all brands meet current eligibility and quality standards.

This pause is only temporary—your partnership with Microsoft is still active, and there’s nothing you need to do right now. Our team is reviewing your brand’s status and will reach out if we need more information or have an update.”

So, ladies and gentlemen, I don’t know what happened (or is happening) and I’ll probably never know. But to my great surprise, I think it’s possible that politics played a role in my suspension and then decommissioning. History tells us that it’s not unprecedented.

But as I said before, I never thought it would happen to me.

Who Is The TV Answer Man?
The TV Answer Man is veteran journalist Phillip Swann who has covered television for more than three decades. He can be reached at swann@tvanswerman.com.