If you’ve been permanently banned from a social media platform like TikTok, it’ll be obvious right away: you won’t be able to log in and your profile won’t be found in a search. A shadow ban, on the other hand, is much more subtle, and the platform will hide your account from other users without even letting you know.
There is debate about whether social media platforms actually use shadow bans to suppress certain content, but it is a real tactic. 1 in 10 Users have probably experienced it before, and here’s everything you need to know about TikTok shadow bans.
What is TikTok Shadowban?
A TikTok shadow ban is a tactic by which the platform minimizes the visibility of an account’s content, without notifying the account owner. If you’re shadow banned (possibly for violating TikTok’s Community Guidelines), your content may no longer appear on other users’ “for you” pages or in hashtag searches. engagement This is because it prevents other users in the TikTok community from easily viewing or interacting with your posts.
Why you might get TikTok shadowbanned
Like other social media platforms, TikTok may use shadow bans to penalize accounts that violate or repeatedly violate TikTok’s Community Guidelines. The most common guideline violations include:
Posting adult content
Nudity, sexually explicit content, violence, drugs, and other content that is inappropriate for minors violate TikTok’s rules and can get your account shadowbanned.
Bullying and hate speech
While TikTok encourages personal expression, it prohibits targeting others, spreading hateful views, or harassing other users in the comments section — all of which violate its rules against bullying and hateful conduct.
Promoting risky behavior
Content that promotes harmful behaviors, like eating disorders, violent extremism, self-harm, suicide or dangerous challenges, also violates TikTok’s Community Guidelines, and the platform quickly bans this content to protect users from harm.
Posting copyrighted material
TikTok has a strict policy against copyright infringement. If you post content that you do not own the intellectual property rights to, the platform will mute your video or remove it altogether. To comply with the Community Guidelines and avoid copyright issues, use music from TikTok’s licensed library and don’t promote someone else’s music. Original content As your own.
Spam and bots
Using bots or creating fake accounts to artificially boost engagement can quickly land your account in trouble, and TikTok tracks what it calls “spammy behavior” and throttles it to stop users from gaming its algorithms.
How to Tell If You’ve Been Shadowbanned
Signs that you may have been shadowbanned include:
Sudden drop in engagement
To view your analytics in the TikTok app, go to your profile, tap the drop-down menu in the top right, select “Creator Studio,” then tap “Analytics.” You’ll see the number of video views, profile views, likes, comments, and shares. Select a time period at the top (such as “Last 7 days” or “Last 60 days”) and look at the bar graphs to see if there’s a sudden, significant drop in engagement.
Not showing up on the Recommendations page
Your content will normally appear in the friends feed of all your followers. Ask a friend who follows you to check their friends feed to see if they can see your TikTok videos. If they can’t, you may have been shadow banned.
Hashtags not showing up in search results
If you use hashtag Adding a hashtag to your video description will help your video appear in search results for that hashtag. Ask a friend to search for one of your hashtags and see if your video appears in the search results. If it’s an uncommon hashtag or you have a fairly large following, your content may appear near the top of the search results.
Having trouble uploading videos
If you’re trying to upload a TikTok video and you see a repeated “Processing” or “Reviewing” message, but your internet connection is fine, our system may be blocking the content. This can happen if the system determines that the video contains sexually explicit content, hate speech, or other prohibited material.
How long does a TikTok shadowban last?
Because TikTok doesn’t mention its shadow ban policy in its Community Guidelines, there’s no way to know for sure if you’ve been shadow banned or how long the shadow ban lasted. Many users who believe they’ve been shadow banned estimate that it lasted for about two weeks. A small number of users claim that their shadow ban lasted for more than a month.
Tips to get rid of TikTok shadowban
Have you been shadowbanned and are wondering what’s going on? Here are some things you can do to get your TikTok account back on track:
Remove content that violates the rules
Most shadowbans come from violating TikTok’s community guidelines, so be sure to review your existing content and remove anything that may be harmful, hateful, or potentially copyright infringing.
Follow TikTok’s Community Guidelines
As you use the platform, make sure your new posts and comments comply with TikTok’s Community Guidelines. Avoid inappropriate content that TikTok may flag as adult, dangerous, hateful, or copyrighted.
Practice Self-Control
Resist the urge to mass-post or mass-follow to make up for the loss of engagement, and focus on regular Social Media Content CalendarPrioritize high-quality content and post no more than once a day, although the ideal frequency varies by platform. For example: Post to Instagram Three to five times a week is optimal, as TikTok’s algorithms can sometimes flag high volumes of activity as spammy, which can unintentionally extend the duration of your shadow ban.
be patient
If that doesn’t work, or you think your content was flagged in error, just wait — most users believe that a shadowban lasts about two weeks, so keep posting, follow our community guidelines, and monitor your analytics to see if the numbers go back to normal.
Frequently asked questions about TikTok Shadowban
How do I fix TikTok shadowban?
If you think you’ve been shadowbanned on TikTok, remove any flagged content that may violate TikTok’s guidelines and make sure any new activity follows the rules, avoiding spammy behavior, especially bulk posting and following from new accounts.
Why do I have zero views on TikTok?
If you’ve experienced a significant drop in your follower count on TikTok, you may be subject to a shadow ban. However, if your account is new or has a small following, you may just need to beef up your content. How to go viral on TikTok.
Can I avoid being shadowbanned on TikTok?
If you follow TikTok’s community guidelines and avoid posting harmful, copyrighted, or spammy videos, you shouldn’t have any issues with shadow bans. However, TikTok Support doesn’t publish its shadow ban policy, so much of the information users have about shadow bans is anecdotal.
