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Social Media & Content Creation vocabulary · Algorithms and Analytics

Shadowban

Meaning in social media & content creation, with examples

/ˈʃædoʊbæn/nounCommon term

In social media & content creation, shadowban means: A situation in which a platform quietly limits who can see an account's content without telling the owner, so reach suddenly drops.

In Turkish: gölge yasak, shadowban, erişim kısıtlaması

How it is used

An informal word. Platforms rarely use it, but some admit that content can be left out of recommendations for breaking guidelines. Creators say 'I think I've been shadowbanned' when reach drops for no clear reason.

Example sentences

  1. Is it really a shadowban, or did the content just perform worse this week?

  2. He was sure he'd been shadowbanned after using a banned hashtag.

Common collocations

  • get shadowbanned
  • lift a shadowban
  • shadowban test
  • account restrictions
  • algorithmThe system a platform uses to decide which posts each user sees, in what order, and which content to recommend.
  • reachThe number of different people or accounts that saw your content at least once in a certain period.
  • For You pageTikTok's main feed of recommended videos, chosen for each user by the algorithm and including many from accounts they don't follow.
  • hashtagA word or phrase that starts with the # symbol, which groups posts on the same topic and helps people find them.

More terms: Algorithms and Analytics

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