What it means to be Shadowbanned on Twitter
How I got Shadowbanned on Twitter
Updated September 2018 – I’ve included an updated Shadowban checker which gives more information on the nature of your ban. This is still a thing Twitter is doing, stay safe friends!
If you follow me on Twitter, you may have seen some of my tweets about how I got Shadowbanned. What is a shadow ban? I’ll get to that.
On the morning of the day I was shadowbanned, I had never heard of it. I coincidentally read an article that said if your feed consists of you pushing your blog links etc then you could be shadowbanned. I read about what shadowbanning is and I thought, well yeah, it’s spamming so it makes sense. I didn’t think any more of it.
Later that day I found one of those blog follow threads on Twitter. Now, these are great, I love them. I follow everyone on them, read a bit of their blog, and tweet back to them saying I’d followed, mentioned something I liked from their blog and share a link to mine in case they are interested in checking mine out too. Oh how naive I was.
That’s spamming. I didn’t really realise as I was tweeting individual personalised tweets, but each contained a link to my blog, and with over 100 tweets, it was spamming.
I got shadow banned.
What is Shadow Banning on Twitter?
If Twitter thinks you’ve been spamming, you get shadowbanned. There are many theories about what causes a shadow ban but there’s nothing concrete. Now, Twitter doesn’t actually acknowledge that this is a thing. They do admit there’s something called ‘account limiting’ though – but there isn’t much on that either.
Here’s what happens to you if you’re shadowbanned:
- Others will not get a notification when you mention them.
- Others will not see your mentions in their “Mentioned” tab.
- You will not show up on any search queries.
- Your tweets will be hidden in any thread.
- Tweets which have been quoted Twitter-style will appear as “Unavailable”.
- You won’t appear in any # searchers
That’s right. You can’t participate in any chats. For me, as it was a Sunday, this meant I couldn’t do #StoryCrafter. I also couldn’t participate in #booksfortrade or any other hashtag.
You can’t have conversations. Twitter doesn’t tell you they’ve done this, how long it will last, why they’ve done it, nothing. They just limit what you can do on Twitter, in the hopes that you’ll stop the ‘bad behaviour’. It’s affecting a lot of bloggers out there and most of them probably don’t even realise it’s happened to them.
How do I know if I’ve been Shadowbanned?
You won’t be alerted by Twitter, that’s for sure. I only found out as one of my Twitter pals had tweeted saying that some of her follower’s tweets weren’t showing in her mentions. I replied saying maybe they’ve been shadowbanned, to which she replied, yours didn’t show up – I think you’ve been banned.
My heart sank into my stomach. I had noticed a dip in my engagement, but I didn’t want to believe it. I googled it and found this blog by When Tania Talks which detailed what it was and how to find out if you’ve been hit by the ban hammer.
Shadowban Checker
I tried this handy shadowban checker, and lo and behold, I was shadowbanned.
According to her blog a ban could last any length of time. She details a couple of ways to get around it, I tried them all – they didn’t work.
How to get around a Shadow ban on Twitter?
You can’t. Just – can’t. Tania talked about how she got rid of it by contacting Twitter Ads and pretending that she wanted to spend some money with them – which in turn got them to lift the ban. I tried this – they told me that they had nothing to do with the ban and the ban wouldn’t stop my sponsored tweet – gee thanks Twitter. They told me to contact support. Only support is now automated completely, and there’s not section on shadowbans or account limiting anywhere. I know, I tried everywhere. So I just had to cross my fingers and hope it was only a 72 hour ban, and it was.
One way to get around it is to uncheck your ‘quality’ filter. It won’t stop you getting banned – it will stop Twitter from stopping you seeing those that have been hit by a shadowban.
Moral of the story
- Make sure you don’t tweet links excessively
- Keep your content genuine and don’t use any automated bots
- Uncheck your quality filter so that it will make this whole thing pointless
- If you’ve been shadowbanned – it should only be temporary so try and weather the storm.
Thanks for reading! Have you been shadowbanned? Got more info on it or know something I’ve left out, please let me know in the comments!
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42 Comments
I have never heard of this. That is so awful! I’m so sorry you got to wait this out. I really hope it gets fixed super soon.
Thank you! It was only 72hrs thankfully!
I didn’t know it until I read your post. Thanks to you I will be more careful! 🙈😂
Glad I could help! I wish I had known haha
This sounds horrible! Hope it passes quickly! Thank you for writing this post and getting this out there! More people need to know this is happening!
It was 72hrs then it was over thankfully. But others might not be so lucky!
Ah, Thank God! Oh my, at least now more people know about it!
I’m so sorry this happened to you! Thanks for posting this article, it’s really informative!
Thank you! You’re welcome, just trying to spread the word 🙂
Seen so many people saying they’ve been shadow banned recently! Such a helpful post!!
Thank you! Glad it’s of some use. I was lucky it was only temporary.
Oh wow 😳 I didn’t think anything like that happened. Sorry to hear that, hope you are unbanned soon! And thank you for the warning I myself have been re tweeting the Blogger and Instagram links. I think I retweeted 3 this week but I’m gonna stop. :/ it sucks that they ban you though. I mean I get spamming can be annoying but some people are just looking for some accounts to follow and blogs to check out. I know that’s why I do it.
It was only 72 hour ban thankfully! I think 3 times a week will definitely be okay! It’s only if it’s all you do and you do it all the time x
Aww brilliant! 72 hours is not too bad. I know some bans on Facebook last a month. 😳 It’s not Twitter but still, that’s a long time. Thank you, I was worrying a little 🙂
Glad it was a short one for you! It is honestly worrying that it happens to bloggers who are just trying to make connections.
Same. I am super careful now!
I didn’t even know this was a thing. That’s lame, you were just trying to expand the community.
Thank you, it was, but thankfully only temporary.
[…] I found a post this week by the blogger Jengle Bells – she explains shadow-banning in some detail in – What it means to be Shadowbanned on Twitter. […]
Oh, no! I have never heard of this! Thanks for the article, it’s very informative!
Hopefully it doesn’t happen to you x
[…] În octombrie anul trecut, în Germania a intrat în vigoare legea combaterii hate speech-ului. S-a aflat și unde funcționează sediul cenzurii nemțești. Twitter aplică deja shadow banning, un mijloc extrem de perfid de banare a conținutului nedorit. […]
Hello.. I’m new to twitter and I got shadowbanned for more than 1 weeks right now. 😅 When you’re getting shadowbanned can we do any retweet, reply or bookmark tweet? I want to tweet but I’m afraid making this shadowbanned last longer. 😣
If it’s over a week you’ve probably done something they really didn’t like? What’s your twitter handle and I’ll have a look?
Hi, I am shadowbanned since 5 days. I have occassionally tweeted may be just 2 or 3 during these 5 days. I am scared as it might take longer. Honestly I didn’t have any idea how this happened. Do we have to quit the account until it gets lifted?
Did it get fixed?
I have been affected by one every so often, & I am currently affected by a shadow ban. I think it’s because I like so many Tweets – I go crazy with how many I like and I don’t slow down with the rate I am liking them. I like a lot of Tweets which aren’t even worthy of a like. I just press the like button for the sake of it. They’ve gone before the bans but, I have autism, and until the latest one goes I cannot settle. I get really stressed. It may only be a little internet thing. However, a small thing can be a big thing for someone with autism.
Ah I’m sorry that it affects you like that, Twitter really need to sort it out. I replied to all my comments on Twitter last night and I think I got banned. All I did was reply to them but I had 100+ so they saw it as spam. So ridiculous
I never heard of this and thank you for sharing this info. Also, thank you for following my blogs. 🙂
You’re welcome!
Excellent post. Thanks for sharing and enjoy the day.
Thank you! 💜
Really great post! Thank you for sharing!
Thank you!
…and yet another reason to avoid Twitter!
I love Twitter way too much ahah
I was wondering what you meant by this in your thread….now I know. Thanks for the info!
You’re welcome! Threads like that are fun but impossible to reply to everyone for this reason! They want to make sure people aren’t using bots but it stops genuine interactions
Thanks so much for this post. I have been on Twitter for awhile but have no real knowledge of shadow banning. I feel a little less in the dark as a result of your post. Thanks again.
You’re super welcome!
I have never heard of this term. That’s a really informative post. Thanks for sharing. 🙂 I am guilty of throwing links to my blog here and there a bit. 😛 Guess now I need to stop it.
You’re welcome! It’s okay to do it just not constantly