Shadow Banned Meaning: What It Is and Why It Matters – Full Guide

Have you ever faced or heard of a sudden fall in general engagement on your Instagram despite posting at the best time possible?

This could be shadowbanning, a secret technique of social media platforms. The crude meaning of this term is algorithmic curtailing of the engagement of one’s account and content, inducing a limited or lower reach of one’s respective posts.  

Also called silent censoring, it is a discretionary attempt by social media platforms to make the account largely invisible to other users. 

What Does Shadow Banning Mean?

The shadow ban meaning has evolved over time and has been under debate for long. 

Definition and explanation

The term “shadowbanning”, in its literary meaning, is connotated as intentionally shrinking or ceasing the level of engagement of an account or posts on a specific topic. However, its proper meaning has changed over time. 

Initially, it meant a deceptive suspension of an account. Gradually, it began to be elucidated differently by including downranking and delisting, which does not outright conceal the content but diminishes their chances of  appearance to the netizens. 

Getting more precise into its definition, renowned digital marketer Neil Patel defines it as “when your social media posts can no longer be viewed by other users.”

Tarleton Gillespie, author of the book “Custodians of the Internet,” was of the view that “When people say ‘shadowbanning’ or ‘censorship’ or ‘pulling levers,’ they’re trying to put into words that something feels off, but they can’t see from the outside what it is and feel they have little power to do anything about it.”

He has also affirmed that “Shadowbanning is the conceptual counterpart to the platform’s amplification of problematic content for the sake of boosting engagement through recommender algorithms. ”

After deciphering its meaning, let’s move to its crucial features, which are worth discussing.

Key features

The essence of this type of ban depicts its nature. Although there is less information available about it, its basic character portrays the following features:

• Invisible restrictions: The users generally face a fall in general engagement due to invisible restrictions such as content not visible in the feeds, the account not seen in the search results, etc. 
• User perception: The user is largely unaware of it. Hence, the overall performance drops without any change in the content structuring strategy by the account owner. 
• Platform policies: Every platform has a certain set of guidelines and rules cataloged in the form of policy to maintain the decency and propriety in content sharing. Contravening them can trigger shadowbanning by the platform. 

These characteristics make the shadow ban different from the traditional bans. 

Difference between shadow-banning and traditional bans

As both techniques have been used to streamline the digital discipline, there are certain core differences between the two terms. 

The fundamental differences between the two are as follows:

1. In the former, the account remains active. But in the latter, the platform forcibly deactivates it. 
2. Shadow banning limits the reach of the content and account, but in traditional banning, both the account and the content disappear altogether. 
3. Shadowban is a lighter form of penalty than traditional banning.
4. The user is not intimated of being shadowbanned. However, they are informed of being penalized in traditional bans. 

Origin of the Term “Shadow Ban”

The digital space has been evolving with time with many new technical concepts emerging in the backdrop. This type of ban is one such technique that demands consideration. 

Historical roots of the term

The concept has its roots back in the times when social media was becoming vague. It has been devised to maintain decorum and discipline on the platform, along with promoting free and fair speech.

This particular term was coined by Jonathan Zittrain, a professor at Harvard University. However, it caught the eye in 2018 when US President Donald J. Trump accused the social media platform of shadow-banning prominent Republicans in the US.

How it gained prominence in the digital age

The technique has gradually surfaced in the social media field. In the last decades, certain accusations of its use have been reported, which further flared debate over it. 

In 2015, Reddit used it in response by making such posts invisible which foiled the platform guidelines. Later, the strategy was improvised to substitute it with account suspension. 

Further, in 2018, US President Donald J. Trump condemned the social media platforms for shadow-banning the viewpoints related to the conservative section. Public opinion got more intense when Elon Musk, the owner of Twitter, released some evidence in 2022 to clarify that conservative viewpoints are being shadow-banned.

However, amid soaring allegations against the social media platforms of using it covertly, Adam Mosseri, the Instagram head in 2022, came with a statement saying “Shadow-banning is not a thing on Instagram.” 

This trend was further made clear by a survey conducted by the Centre for Democracy and Technology in 2022, which stated that 1 out of 10 American citizens on social media suspect they have been shadow-banned on any platform. 

After going through all the above situations, let’s understand what shadow banned meaning is. 

How Shadow Banning Works

The concealed process of this ban irks the users. However, understanding its working can help people grasp its crux and mold the content strategy accordingly. 

Mechanisms behind shadow banning: algorithms and moderation policies.

This discrete process is not an outcome of any individual decision but rather a deliberate response from the social media platform working on intricate algorithms and APIs. 

These algorithms follow a confidential set of instructions that process the content, segregate it, and respond by curtailing its reach or ceasing its spread. The commands and instructions underlying these algorithms vary from platform to platform. 

Forbes has mentioned that the white male culture amongst the top social media giants in Silicon Valley has contributed to developing algorithms embedded in AI. These algorithms understand and respond to the general sentiments that are grasped from the content.

Another instrumental factor that steers this process is the moderation policies of the social media platforms. These are the set of general instructions and protocols for the account holders to adhere to while posting content and interacting with other users. 

In a broader sense, the moderation policy of a platform revolves around monitoring the content, enforcing the rules and guidelines, and taking action for contraventions. The violation of this comprehensive set of guidelines and rules is pivotal in triggering the shadow ban, which further stimulates restrictive actions.

Common triggers for shadow ban (e.g., violating community guidelines, spammy behavior)

All social media platforms work on the fundamental principle of freedom of expression. However, certain activities can trigger this ban, leading to obstruction in the reach of the content. 

These triggers are:

1. Using banned hashtags.
2. Adding a bulk of hashtags in a post.
3. Using a bot or programmed third-party tool on the platform. 
4. Unethical activities such as paying for likes, follows, and comments. 
5. Unauthorized behaviors such as hate speech, derogatory remarks, etc. 
6. Violating the moderation policy of the platform. 

When the user indulges in the above-mentioned acts like using a free followers hack on Instagram, the platform promptly responds by inducing an algorithmic analysis, which can lead to it getting banned. 

Examples from popular platforms like Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, and Reddit

No social media platform has accepted indulging in shadowbanning. However, certain instances of such biases in content spread have been reported by the users. 

For example, an investigation by the Wall Street Journal in 2016 reported that Facebook has been suppressing the reach of conservative views and posts. Similarly, in 2018, a report by the New York Times revealed that Instagram has been shadowbanning body positivity-related hashtags. 

Again in 2020, a report by the Wall Street Journal on TikTok mentioned Shadow banning the content of users critical of the Chinese government. 

Many such allegations and evidence have been made public that accused social media giants of involving themselves in using it. But how does someone know he/she has been targeted by a platform?

Let’s understand it. 

Signs You Might Be Shadow Banned

Inflicting a shadow ban is an undisclosed and uninformed process. However, certain implicit signs hint at its occurrence.

Let’s discuss them sequentially. 

Decreased engagement or reach

The account under its ambit faces an abrupt decrease in general social media engagement. This induces a crash in the people’s response to the content, as it becomes invisible to other users. 

Eventually, the content reach gets affected, and the follower counts will fluctuate or possibly decrease. 

Content visibility issues 

When shadow-banned, the content reach is either reduced or completely disappears from the feeds of the people. This contracts the people’s response, thus impacting the performance of the account. 

Difficulty in searchability for hashtags or profiles.

There have been reports of a reduction in the search results of certain hashtags and profiles of the users posting content that contravenes the platform guidelines. 

As per Andrew Lee, a tech entrepreneur from Austin, Texas, social platforms such as Instagram also make the profile of the owner invisible to the people. He also explains that banned hashtags are those that are not allowed to be used on that particular social media website, and using them in your post will attract a restrictive response from the platform’s algorithm. 

These factors have raised concerns over the ethical use of such platforms, thus drawing public discontent and controversies. 

Controversies Around Shadow Banning

The underlying process of Shadowban has been undisclosed since its inception, which has generated a debate on the transparency and fairness of its application.

Debates on transparency and fairness.

The shadow-banning practice has no clear and blunt guidelines, and neither has any platform accepted for using it.

This has directed the discussion to the Black Box Gaslight technique, in which the platform owner makes it hard for the users to understand their algorithm, reducing the ability of the users to criticize them or hold them accountable. 

Tanmay Singh, associate litigation counsel at the Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF), has said that “when the social media platforms take down any specific content, they are required to follow certain procedures. However, shadowbanning facilitates escaping these procedures.”

Similarly, in a Twitter live organized by the think tank “The Dialogue,” Udbhav Tiwari, public policy advisor at Mozilla Foundation, has appealed to social media platforms to be transparent about the number of accounts shadow-banned. It will reduce the ambiguity about it among the users. 

This tug-of-war between advocacy agencies and major platforms has persisted for the past few decades and is expected to continue until a concrete and consensus-based decision is derived. 

The above debate can be supplemented with its merits and demerits to get better clarity. 

Arguments for and against shadow-banning practices.

Like every concept, technique, and process, it is also favored and disfavoured for certain reasons. 

Arguments for: 

1. Maintains the decorum on social media platforms. 
2. Curbs the spread of disruptive and instigative content. 

Arguments against: 

1. Questions about accountability and reduced trust over social media platforms.
2. Being an uninformed and impactful response, it can annoy the users by disincentivizing them.
3. Leads to opinion and sentiment censoring.
4. Stands against freedom of speech. 

Considering the above points, it is apparent that the platforms should be mindful of the inconvenience caused by the users by this uninformed and unobservable ban. 

Notable cases and public backlash.

The public discontent is conspicuous from the social media trends and the popular accusations and allegations. 

This resentment can be traced back to 2012 when Reddit users accused the platform of banning links to Gawker Articles. 

The recent release of Twitter files  gave a fresh impetus to it, where Elon Musk distinctly used the term “shadowbanning.” This further fuelled the fire in the debate over the prudent use of platform algorithms in a moral, ethical, and transparent manner. 

In recent times, several cases of accounts being shadowbanned for posting content over Palestine have surfaced. 

These backlashes have been responded to by a few platforms by releasing statements. However, no concrete outcome has been reached till now. 

Platforms and Their Shadow Ban Policies

This practice has been employed by many prominent social media giants to alter the content’s popularity on their platforms.

Here is a brief account of such practices used by some renowned social media platforms:

Instagram: Common Triggers and Resolutions

Being one of the most used social media platforms, Instagram has been reported to use this ban. As Instagram often updates its algorithm, it impacts the engagement rate, making the users oblivious to the content engagement trends. 

Concerning this ban, here are some of its common triggers:

1. Accounts are often reported.
2. Using broken or banned hashtags
3. Installing bots or growth tools can be spammy.
4. Inauthentic practices such as incorporating scores of hashtags or buying followers, likes, and comments.

Countering the above triggers, a user is required to maintain passivity over the platform for some days or weeks and revamp the strategy to make it adhere to the community guidelines. 

X: Suspected Practices and Official Stance

X (formerly Twitter) is a popular microblogging site. To maintain community discipline, it has started labelling the accounts, which indicates suspicious activities and can be a hint of shadow ban meaning on X. 

Some common practices instigating labeling are:

1. Spreading misinformation.
2. Violating the content policy.
3. Content reported by many people. 
4. Content published by manipulative media. 

In this direction, the official response to labeling has been released, which goes as follows:

This indicates that the platform has been dedicated to maintaining parity in content reach and sharing. 

TikTok: Alleged Restrictions and Community Response

TikTok has captivated people through its short video-sharing feature. However, certain unauthorized activities attract restrictions without outright banning the account. 

Some resections faced by the users are:

1. Post or the account is not visible to other people.
2. Sudden falls in likes, shares, and comments on the content.
3. Restrictions in video uploading (may show processing or under review).

There have been some reports of shadow-banning of disruptive content, such as extreme stunts, criminal trends, body-shaming, or abusive clips. 

In light of such responses from TikTok, users can take a glance at its community guidelines to comply with them. 

Reddit: Subreddit Shadow-bans and Moderation Policies

Reddit has been accused of using this strategy since a decade ago, back in 2012, when Reddit users alleged that the platform was banning the links to a Gawker Article. 

A few years later, the site was suspected of taking action against the users who broke the Reddit rules. It responded by hiding their posts and openly shadowbanning them. 

Later, in 2015, it changed its policy and moved to account suspension, and refuted the use of this ban. 

The above stances by Reddit have been rooted in its moderation policy. Its moderator code of conduct exhibits a comprehensive set of rules and ethical norms to be abided by the moderators over the platform. Committing to this code of conduct will prevent the user from attracting any bans or restrictions. 

How to Avoid Being Shadow Banned

Although there is limited information about it, following some crucial steps can keep you away from its impact. 

Best practices for compliance with community guidelines.

The community guidelines are the blueprint for how the decorum is to be maintained on the platform. Following them keeps the user’s content in concurrence with the demands of the platform. 

Some of the best practices for compliance with community guidelines are:

• Publish content in concurrence with the community guidelines.
• Increase public trust with engagement.
• Avoid sharing posts containing extreme content, such as vulgarity, cruelty, nudity, etc. 
• Refrain from hate speech and maintain a decent tone of interaction. 

These best practices will be instrumental in aligning the content with the community guidelines. 

Tips to maintain organic engagement.

To grasp the crux of the shadow ban meaning, the popular digital marketer Neil Patel has mentioned certain points to keep in mind to avoid this ban. Out of them, Some prominent ones are:

• Refrain from posting illegal topics.
• Avoid making content that attracts negative responses from people, such as mute, blocking, or reporting from the public. 
• Do not copy and paste a link or content over and over again, and don’t post spam. 
• Abstain from using the banned hashtags in the posts. 

Following these suggestions will keep the account out of the scope of the shadow ban. 

Tools to analyze content performance and detect issues.

Tracking the content performance and detecting and addressing its issues helps keep the account alive. This can be simplified by using some tools that can gauge the overall reach of the account and provide significant insights. Some of these tools are:

• Google Analytics
• Google search console
• Ahref
• Semrush
• Yoast 

Certain content auditing tools are also recommended, which can trace the strengths and weaknesses in the content and will help in structuring an accepted and welcomed post. The 2 most prominent content auditing tools are:

• MARKETMUSE: It uses AI algorithms to analyse the content and provides significant insights into the strengths, content gap, and areas for improvement.
• Grammarly: This widely used tool also leverages AI technology to fine-tune the content quality by finding grammatical errors, suggesting rephrasing of the piece of speech, and also providing tone adjustment in the content. 

The above tools will facilitate the account holders in averting the chances of being shadowbanned. 

But what if your account still encounters it?

Let’s address it too. 

How to Recover from a Shadow Ban

Unfortunately, if you are trapped in this ban, how will you respond?

Here are some pivotal discussion points revolving around this issue. 

Steps to identify the shadow-ban.

The users encountering the shadow ban will not receive any intimation of being caught under it. However, checking for some common changes will help them decipher their occurrence. 

1. Check for the account engagement stats: Every social media platform provides an internal tool or interface to gauge and analyze the social engagement of the content. A sudden drop in it without any intimation or account ban can be a hint of the account being shadow-banned. 
2. Use external tools: Some online tools, such as Spikerz shadow-ban calculators, provide vivid insights into the overall account performance and can indicate shadow-banning. 
3. Conducting a manual check:  The user can check for their account and content on the platform, or ask its followers or known people to search for it. If the search results do not show the desired content, it signifies the shadow-banning of your account. 

Appealing to platforms or revising content strategies.

If the account has been brought under its scope, then the users are required to recalibrate their content strategy by inculcating the following suggestions: 

1. Revise content strategy.
2. Stop using any growth tool or bot.
3. Never go with unauthorized practices such as paying for likes, follows, or comments. 
4. Avoid using the banned hashtags.
5. Take a break from uploading content.
6. Read, understand, and adhere to the terms of use, community guidelines, and recommendation guidelines of the platforms. 
7. Refrain from posting non-permissible or misleading information.

These crisp and clear recommendations will help users neutralize its impact. 

However, some other broad changes are also required to be introduced. 

Waiting period behavioral adjustments.

The shadow-ban is not an enduring penalty. It takes some time for the accounts and posts to regain their past reach and popularity. 

For example, the popular gaming platform ACTIVISION Shadow bans an account for 7 to 14 days for breaching the gaming rules, guidelines, and terms of service. 

Though not explicitly mentioned on any platform, the shadow ban is generally a short-term punishment, which is lifted after a few days to weeks. 

This time gap can be productively used by the account holder to tailor their content strategy to adapt to the practices conforming to the moderation policy of the platform. 

The Future of Shadow Banning

“Free speech differs from free reach,” as quoted by Renee Diresta, perfectly portrays the present situation. The future of this type of ban lies in maintaining parity in content reach and engagement. 

Predictions about evolving moderation policies.

The moderation policy, being the primary factor triggering this ban, is revised periodically by websites to match the contemporary digital scenario. 

However, the platforms should come up with distinct guidelines and rules regarding shadow bans in their policies and protocols. 

In this direction, the Digital Service Act (DSA) by the EU has vividly called for transparency in content moderation decisions and shadow-banning. On the same lines, the European Parliament has also taken it into account and indicated the importance of DSA in countering shadowbanning.  

Role of AI and transparency in content moderation.

As mentioned in the above discussions, the need for transparency in moderation policies has been echoed globally. 

However, Tauhid Zaman, associate professor of operations management at Yale School of Management, is of the view that the moderation policy has a minimum role when shadow-banning is instrumentalized to mold popular sentiments and beliefs. 

There have been assertions by many organizations over the application of its mirror concept, i.e. shadow amplification, which further brings a compelling need to check it. 

The prominent use of emerging technologies has further instituted significant changes in content moderation. Going with the opinion of Forbes, AI is employed by most of the social media giants and is embedded in their algorithms. This technological blend absorbs popular opinion and has an immense impact on shadow-banning accounts and posts.

The integration of AI in it can further help only if accommodated with transparency, which can further alter the shadow ban meaning. 

User rights and advocacy against unjust practices.

Shadow ban has been at the center of public discontent for compromising fundamental privacy and speech rights. Tauhid Zaman has stated that it can be used as a tool to simulate public opinion or raise or restrict their polarization. 

This has attracted global attention, thus questioning its ethicality. In a similar attempt, the allegations of shadowbanning have been scrutinized by the Belgian court to analyse their compliance with the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation, which protects privacy rights. The court has come to the conclusion that this ban contradicts articles 13, 14, and 22 of GDPR. 

Apart from that, several non-profit organisations have been advocating and agitating to build and maintain the momentum against this ban and prevent basic human rights.

Conclusion

In a nutshell, if your course of action and engagement is varying, my friend, it’s high to accept that you are shadow-banned. Before riding to any conclusion, take a detailed insight, whether the ban is temporary or permanent. If you are lucky enough, most shadowbans are temporary.

But, above everything, finding the reason and when it happened can be a tricky job. Moreover, check your activities and current posts to recognize the mistakes from your end, and try to resolve them as soon as possible and avoid indulging in the controversial acts in future.z

Suggested Read: Top 10 Free Tools for Instagram Hashtag Generation

FAQs About Shadow Banning