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If you’ve noticed a lack of engagement on TikTok recently, you could be experiencing the infamous TikTok shadow ban. But what actually causes it? How do you know if it affected your account? How can you avoid one? And what can you do to unbind yourself? We’ve got all the answers below.
What Is Shadow Banning on TikTok, Anyway?
A shadow ban on TikTok is when your account has unknowingly become blocked or partially blocked on the app. As a result, your content won’t show up on the For You page and you’ll likely experience a significant drop in likes, views, and comments. Shadow banning is an automatic process by TikTok’s algorithm to protect users from copyright issues, spam, threats, and inappropriate content. Essentially, it’s TikTok’s way of putting your account on a timeout — which can negatively impact your reach, discoverability, and stunt your growth on the platform.
An Introduction to TikTok’s Community Guidelines
Community guidelines are the rules of the road for how to behave on a given social media platform — and TikTok’s are no different. TikTok’s Community Guidelines highlight how the app prioritizes safety, diversity, inclusion, and authenticity. From dangerous acts to hateful behavior, there are a number of reasons they remove your videos from the platform. According to TikTok, they’re updating guidlines to combat new behaviors and risks, and to uphold a safe community for its users.
TikTok Shadow Ban: How to Avoid It
Although TikTok has not officially acknowledged the existence of a “shadow ban,” violating the platform’s community guidelines can lead to severe consequences.
TikTok has stated that it may temporarily or permanently ban users who repeatedly violate its community guidelines. Here are four reasons for shadow banning on TikTok:
Firstly, TikTok strictly prohibits posting adult content under their community guidelines. Any content that contains nudity, pornography, or sexually explicit material could result in a shadow ban or complete ban from the platform. The solution is simple: keep your content PG-rated to avoid this issue.
Secondly, TikTok prioritizes inclusivity and individual expression without fear of abuse, and thus hateful or bullying behavior is not tolerated. Posting, commenting or sharing any content deemed as hate by TikTok risks having your content missed by others. So, keep the hate offline and focus on creating high-quality content.
Thirdly, posting content that violates someone else’s copyrights, trademarks, or intellectual property rights is illegal and strictly prohibited by TikTok. Stick to creating original content to avoid any potential legal consequences.
Lastly, TikTok relies on automated moderation to check for community guideline violations, which is not always accurate. This often leads to unfairly flagging or censoring content creators. Unfortunately, TikTok does not inform users when shadow bans them, but if your content is not visible on the For You page or search, videos won’t upload, and there’s a sudden drop in likes, views, or shares, it’s highly likely that you’ve been shadow banned.
Conclusion
In summary, to avoid shadow banning on TikTok, stick to creating original, PG-rated content that follows the community guidelines and promotes inclusivity.