What Is Shadow Banning On TikTok? (And How To Tell If It's Happened To You)

In recent years, TikTok has absolutely taken the social media landscape by storm, and it's not hard to see why. The app is incredibly user-friendly, making it easy to build a community and find an endless stream of content catered to one's interests. Not to mention, TikTok is loaded with hidden features that contribute to its popularity. Above all else, though, posting on the app is as simple as can be, with it only taking a few steps to make and post videos for the world to see. However, what can be a bit of a challenge is navigating the algorithm and developing the following you want.

Theoretically, becoming a TikTok influencer, reaching a wider audience, or building your follower count shouldn't be hard. As long as you consistently post videos, you should meet your social media goals organically in time, right? Unfortunately, it can get hard to build and maintain traction on TikTok, especially if you end up shadow banned. As the name implies, shadow banning means you can still make and engage with content on the app, though the app may quietly limit your reach. It's done automatically, said to occur when the algorithm detects some form of violation of the ever-evolving Community Guidelines in your content.

So, how would you be able to tell if TikTok has you shadow banned? There are a few different ways to determine if your account has been placed in the app's doghouse and which posts might have contributed to this.

Unfortunately, shadow banning is somewhat of a nebulous topic. It's generally agreed upon that it happens, though there isn't an easy, clear-cut method of finding out if you've fallen victim to it. TikTok won't tell you outright if you've been shadow banned, nor will your experience of making and uploading videos change. Thus, all one can do is follow the potential signs that a shadow ban has befallen their account. A major indicator is a lack of engagement with your videos. If, despite having thousands of followers and several hashtags on a post, it does unusually low numbers of views, likes, and comments, odds are you've been shadow banned. You can always check your TikTok traffic and analytics to gain a better understanding of your situation.

Speaking of engagement, looking at the insights of one such video can reveal a lot. If you open the Insights tab on a video and are met with the message "Your video is not eligible for recommendation in the For You feed," shadow banning is all but guaranteed. At the very least, you can go through the TikTok appeal process to try having your video reevaluated and allowed onto the For You page. It's also a good idea to consider what you've posted recently. Were you in violation of the Community Guidelines? Did you cover a topic that's frowned upon by the algorithm? If so, you may have inadvertently set yourself up to be shadow banned.

Sadly, no one is immune to a potential shadow ban. Thus, all you can do is try some of the methods of getting away from, or avoiding entirely, such covert content suppression.

If possible, it's best to avoid being shadow banned on TikTok by any means. The biggest thing to try is simply staying within TikTok's guidelines. So long as you don't post content that violates the rules of the platform — at least not overtly — you should be able to skirt around the automated system that can push your account into the shadows. Since they're constantly being updated and changed, it's a good idea to regularly check up on the Community Guidelines. This way, if a change has been made that renders your content problematic for the algorithm, you're not caught off guard by a sudden decline in video performance.

Should you end up shadow banned, you have to open a whole other playbook to get your account back to normal. As mentioned, you can attempt appealing the video, or videos, flagged by the algorithm, but if that doesn't work, you can always try deleting them entirely. Clearing your TikTok cache might be of benefit as well, as doing so wipes out any lingering temporary and non-essential files from your page that could connect to the shadow ban. If all else fails, continuing to post as normal and working to get your content back onto the For You page could do the trick, as could taking a break from TikTok, allowing your account's status to return to normal.

No one likes the ban hammer, especially when you are making money on TikTok, even when it doesn't cause a ban in a traditional sense. No matter the content you create, shadow banning can occur to anyone, so it's crucial to know what it is, how to prevent it, and what to do if it affects your account.