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How to Tell if Youโ€™re Shadowbanned on Social Media

Suddenly you notice that none of your social media activity seems to be showing up at all. Itโ€™s like you donโ€™t even exist on the siteโ€ฆ Weird!

Is it a bug? Every website suffers from them sometimes, and the interactive features can often be the first to go haywire. Server maintenance could also be the culprit.

But another possibility is that you might have been โ€œshadowbannedโ€ (previously called ghostbanned).

Accounts that are shadowbanned are put into a kind of invisible mode. In other words, they become a โ€œshadowโ€ that no one can see.

In this post, weโ€™ll talk more about what exactly shadowbanning is, and how you can tell if it happened to you.

What Is Shadowbanning?

Shadowbanning is when your posts or activity donโ€™t show up on a site, but you havenโ€™t received an official ban or notification.

Itโ€™s a way to let spammers continue to spam without anyone else in the community (or outside of it) seeing what they do.

That way, other social media users donโ€™t suffer from spam because they canโ€™t see it. The spammer wonโ€™t immediately start to look for ways to get around the ban, because they donโ€™t even realize theyโ€™ve been banned.

Now, all of this might sound a little odd or shady. Since many websites and apps deny that they shadowban, thereโ€™s no way to know for sure that itโ€™s happened.

If you suspect a shadowban, a change in the websiteโ€™s search or newsfeed algorithm might actually be to blame. And since the algorithms are the property of social media companies, itโ€™s not in their best interest to reveal everything about them publicly.

Regardless of whether youโ€™ve been penalized deliberately or accidentally, the effect is still the sameโ€ฆ no one can see your posts.

Sites That Shadowban

Thereโ€™s no way of getting a full list of sites that shadowban people, since the practice isnโ€™t entirely out in the open.

However, shadowbanningย has been reported beforeย under certain circumstances, on sites and apps likeย Facebook, Instagram, andย TikTok, among others.ย 

Respondents to a survey called Posting Into the Voidย reported four general types of shadowbans:

  • a username or hashtag not showing up in search suggestions
  • a decrease in follower engagement
  • certain features (e.g. likes or replies) being blocked
  • a temporary ban that then reverts back to normal later on

Hereโ€™s how to tell if youโ€™ve been shadowbanned on some popular social media sites:

Twitter Shadowbanning

Does Twitter actually shadowban people? Well, yes and no.

In a blog post, Twitter claimed that they donโ€™t โ€œdeliberately make peopleโ€™s content undiscoverable to everyone except the person who posted itโ€, and they โ€œcertainly donโ€™t shadowban based on political viewpoints or ideology.โ€

However, they did say they โ€œrank tweets and search resultsโ€ to โ€œaddress bad-faith actorsโ€. Basically, if Twitter thinks youโ€™re a spammer or a troll, its algorithm will penalize your content.

How to Avoid Getting Shadowbanned by Twitter

Twitter lists these as some of the factors they use to tell if youโ€™re a โ€œbad-faith actorโ€ or not:

  • Whether or not youโ€™ve confirmed your email address
  • Whether youโ€™ve uploaded a profile picture
  • How recently your account was created
  • Who you follow and retweet
  • Who mutes, follows, retweets, and blocks you

To avoid getting shadowbanned on Twitter, you should confirm your email address and upload a profile picture.

Donโ€™t spam people and donโ€™t be overly promotional. If youโ€™re trying to sell a product or service and are posting too much, other users might block your content, causing a shadowban on your account.

You should also try to avoid trolling, getting into online arguments, or being too confrontational in your posts and comments. This can lead people to mute or block you.

How to Tell If Youโ€™re Shadowbanned on Twitter

Thereโ€™s no way to tell for sure if youโ€™ve been shadowbanned on Twitter. However, you could try using the site Shadowban.eu, which claims to be able to detect a shadowban.

how to check if you are shadowbanned on Twitter

Instagram Shadowbanning

How frustrating is it to work hard atย building up an Instagram following, only to see that your posts suddenly arenโ€™t showing up?

Like with Twitter, Instagramโ€™s CEO has publicly claimed thatย โ€œshadowbanning is not a thingโ€, but asย with Twitter, thatโ€™s not entirely true.

While youย personally might not be being shadowbanned, the algorithm could still be hiding your posts.

Instagramโ€™s algorithm is designed to remove certain content. Namely, the algorithmย penalizes content that Instagram considers โ€œinappropriateโ€, even if the content doesnโ€™t go against the appโ€™sย Community Guidelines. ย 

Specifically, they mention sexually-suggestive content. According to their Community Guidelines, spammy content and content associated with illegal activity or violence is also a no-go.

Instagram prefers โ€œphotos or videos that are appropriate for a diverse audienceโ€โ€ฆ so less family-friendly content may be at risk of a shadowban. ย 

How to Tell If Youโ€™re Shadowbanned on Instagram

Thereโ€™s no surefire way to tell if youโ€™ve been shadowbanned on Instagram, but there are sites that say they can test it. Triberrย is one option.

how to check if you are shadowbanned on Instagram

Reddit Shadowbanning

Shadowbanning onย Redditย is a bit different from shadowbanning on other social media sites. Up until 2015, Reddit openly shadowbanned users who broke the siteโ€™s rules by hiding their posts.

Reddit then announcedย that the shadowbanning system had been replaced with an account suspension system. Basically,ย some Reddit staff thoughtย that the shadowban tool had been useful for dealing with bots, but that banning real human users without telling them what they did wrong was unfair.

However, the site appears to still occasionally be using shadowbans, with theย r/ShadowBan subredditย still active.

According to theirย official content policy, Reddit may enforce their rules by โ€œremoval of privileges from, or adding restrictions to, accountsโ€, and also by โ€œremoval of contentโ€, among other methods. ย 

How to Avoid Getting Shadowbanned on Reddit

Of course, to avoid getting shadowbanned on Reddit, youโ€™ll need to follow their rules. But one tricky thing about that is that the rules on Reddit actually depend on the subreddit you are submitting to.

Youโ€™ll want to read and comment a lot first before submitting your own links. Watch how people react to various types of submissions within a specific subreddit, and then act accordingly.

You can also check out thisย unofficial guide on how to avoid being shadowbanned. Some key points:

  • Donโ€™t spam or post too many links to your own content (if you post a lot of other things too, posting one or two links to your own work is OK)
  • Donโ€™t harass or constantly downvote another user
  • Donโ€™t dox others or encourage doxxing (posting someoneโ€™s personal information without their consent)
  • Donโ€™t post illegal or inappropriate content
  • Donโ€™t abuse moderators or admins

How to Tell if Youโ€™re Shadowbanned on Reddit

To find out if youโ€™re shadowbanned on Reddit, make a post in the r/ShadowBan subreddit. A bot will respond to you, letting you know if youโ€™re shadowbanned.

Even if youโ€™re not, the bot will tell you which posts of yours have been removed recently (if any). ย 

You could also use a third-party tool, likeย Am I Shadowbanned?

How to check if you are shadowbanned on Reddit

TikTok Shadowbanning

TikTok is a popular social network for sharing short videos. Unfortunately, you can get shadowbanned there too (kind of).

While thereโ€™s no official mention of the term โ€œshadowbanโ€ in TikTokโ€™s Community Guidelines, like other social media networks, TikTok uses algorithms to privilege certain content. If you get on the wrong side of the algorithm, fewer people might see the content you post.

To have more people see your content and avoid penalties, try to follow best practices for TikTokโ€™s recommendation algorithm, and always follow the Community Guidelines.

Stay away from illegal material, violence, hate speech, spam, and other similar topics.

To check if youโ€™ve been shadowbannedย on TikTok, look at your pageviews and โ€œFor Youโ€ page statistics. You can also use a hashtag and see if your post shows up under that hashtag.

Facebook Shadowbanning

Facebook calls its content moderation policy โ€œremove, reduce, and inform.โ€

Basically, content that violates Facebookโ€™s Community Standardsย will be removed from the site, while other undesirable content (like misleading information) may be less visible on Facebook or have a warning label placed on it.

If Facebook is consistently โ€œreducingโ€ your content, that could be considered a type of shadowban.

The main thing you can do to trigger a shadowban on Facebook is to share links to fake or misleading information. Content on the site is checked by independent fact-checkingย organizations.

Facebook also penalizes links from websitesย that its algorithm considers clickbait. Low-authority websitesย without a lot of inbound and outbound links that generate a lot of clicks on Facebook may be considered clickbait.

Facebook groups where a lot of misleading links and clickbait are frequently shared may be shadowbanned.

If youโ€™re worried your personal page, business page, or group might have been shadowbanned on Facebook, check for a change in engagement levels on your recent posts.

LinkedIn Shadowbanning

While people donโ€™t often think about getting shadowbanned on LinkedIn, itโ€™s possible for your contentโ€™s reach to be throttled there.

Like other social media sites, LinkedIn has Community Policiesย that all members need to follow to avoid problems.

Since LinkedIn is a professional site, its content policies are even stricter than other platforms. Not only should your content be safe, legal, and appropriate, it has to be professional as well.

Although LinkedIn is obviously a place for career growth and self-promotion, spamming people is still a no-go.

Youโ€™ll need to respect othersโ€™ privacy and intellectual property. You should also avoid harassment or unwanted romantic advances towards other members.

If you violate LinkedInโ€™s policies, they may โ€œlimit the visibility of certain content, or remove it entirely.โ€

That said, the LinkedIn algorithm is pretty complicated. Even if your content is perfectly professional and high-quality, it might still not be getting the reach you want.

Engagement and relevanceย are the top two factors to keep in mind when creating content for LinkedIn. ย 

YouTube Shadowbanning

While itโ€™s not exactly a social network, itโ€™s definitely still a site where people go to learn and share content. Can you be shadowbanned from YouTube?

Well, YouTube shadowbanningย has been in the newsย because of popular creator PewDiePie. According to his fans, the Swedish videogame YouTuberโ€™s channel was penalized in YouTube search.

YouTubeโ€™s official response was thatย it doesnโ€™t shadowban channels, but that some videos might be flagged and need to be reviewed before they show up in search.

Inย an interview with Polygon, they said they were โ€œcurrently working on fixing the issue.โ€ย 

7 Ways to Avoid Getting Shadowbanned on Social Media

Different social networks have their own opinions on what type of violations merit a shadowban. However, we can definitely see some general trends that are worth noting.

Adhere to these guidelines if you want to be safe from a shadowban:

  1. Always stick to the Terms of Service
  2. Follow and watch power users in your category (see what and how they share)
  3. Donโ€™t post links or copy-pasted content over and over
  4. If youโ€™re unsure if the content is appropriate, avoid sharing it
  5. Treat others politely and respectfully
  6. Donโ€™t use banned hashtags
  7. Avoid posting about illegal topics

Conclusion

You may not have any idea you are being shadowbanned. At least not at firstโ€ฆ though over time, you may begin to suspect it.

What you should do to protect yourself is to be careful that what you post isnโ€™t against the terms and conditions of the site or app. Also, try to avoidย spamming content, starting fights with and trolling other users, or posting things that might be considered inappropriate.

A shadowban can be frustrating, especially if you donโ€™t feel like you deserve one. Maybe you donโ€™t agree with the social media algorithm about what is or isnโ€™t inappropriate, or maybe you think you wereย having a constructive debateย while the algorithm thinks you were being a troll.

However, hopefully the tips in this guide can help you avoid being shadowbanned in the future, so your content can get better engagement.

What other ways can help people know if theyโ€™ve been shadowbanned? Let us know in the comments.

The post How to Tell if Youโ€™re Shadowbanned on Social Media appeared first on Neil Patel.