Shadowban
A shadowban is an unannounced drop in a post's or account's distribution, applied by a platform without a notice, ban message or explanation.
A shadowban is the informal term for a platform quietly reducing how far a post or an account reaches, without any notification, strike or visible penalty the user can point to. The account can still post and appears normal to its owner, but shows up less often in feeds, hashtag pages or the For You Page.
No major platform uses the word 'shadowban' in its own policies. TikTok describes the same outcome as 'reduced distribution' or content becoming 'ineligible for the For You feed' under its recommendation guidelines, and Meta's Instagram leadership has acknowledged since 2023 that breaking community guidelines lowers reach, without confirming a single hidden mechanism behind every case creators report.
Common triggers include recently used or flagged hashtags, a sudden burst of following or unfollowing, repeated near-identical reposts, copyright claims and engagement patterns that resemble bought likes or bots. There is no official recovery timer; the practical fix is to stop the flagged behavior, remove any violating post and keep posting normally, since most cases fade within one to a few weeks.
Examples
- A travel account's Reels reach dropping by roughly two thirds for 10 days after using a hashtag later flagged as spam.
- An account regaining normal reach within 2 weeks of stopping a mass-follow campaign that triggered a distribution limit.
Related terms
The ranking system each platform uses to decide whose content appears in whose feed.
Percentage of followers who interact with a post (likes + comments + shares + saves divided by reach or followers).
The For You Page, or FYP, is TikTok's main feed of algorithmically ranked videos chosen for each user instead of a followed-accounts timeline.