hackernews shadow bans as well, and I'm sure many other sites do. Next they will patent commenting on an online web page.

Sort of? I browse with "showdead" on, so I can see these shadow-banned comments. But maybe there is a second level?

Yes, you can. But the whole idea of the shadowbanning is that the one who is shadowbanned does not. So you get this effect where someone is talking to himself or the walls and they don't even know it, sometimes this goes on for years.

Thank god I know I'm shadow-banned.

Not related to showdead, but one can also get shadow banned from being able to up- and downvote here.

There's no second level I know of unless we consider automatically collapsed comments to be a second level.

You only have the "show dead" option on your profile when you have a certain amount of karma IIRC

No, you have it always.

Next year there will be an a startup school interview with Zuckerberg about why it made sense to sue YC over shadow banning patent infringement

Reddit is prior art