[2022 Update] TikTok Account Shadow Ban: Here's How To Check If ...

What's shadowbanned on TikTok?

Shadowbanning (also referred to as "ghost banning" or "stealth banning") is a common practice among major social media sites and TikTok is no exception. 

You aren't necessarily blocked from posting on TikTok,  however, your reach is severely limited, and the algorithm will not introduce your channel to new people.

A TikTok shadowban (also referred to as a ghost ban) occurs when TikTok intentionally limits the organic reach of a user's account on the TikTok app as a result of some action by the user that they don't like.

Shadowbans are typically a result of an action that violates the community guidelines such as spamming, hate speech, harassing another TikTok user, or posting inappropriate content across the social media app but there are many other possible causes.

TikTok users are responsible for both their own TikTok videos as well as their engagement with other TikTok user's channels. Creating content

The duration of a shadowban varies based on the extent of the violations and the user's past history of committing similar violations. The standard duration seems to be about 1-2 weeks. 

The degree of shadow banning might vary from minor to completely cut off from organic exposure on the platform and maybe even to your existing followers. You may or may not still appear in search results and in most cases, other users can still engage with your content, perform duets etc. This is what makes shadow bans so weird, they aren't always obvious. A shadowbanned account will likely be able to still search TikTok via various TikTok user lookup functions. 

They are typically caused by a violation of TikTok's community guidelines. Due to the ever evolving nature of the TikTok algorithm (and social media algorithms in general), it's difficult to tell exactly what causes a shadowban but we can make some educated guesses based on the many real world examples we've seen. 

The term "shadowbanning" has been around for as long as there have been social media algorithms. For example, Twitter users in 2006 had their content hidden from the public if Twitter deemed fit (read more here). 

This is no different with TikTok. Due to the massive amount of exposure that is "free" from the platform, a real shadow ban can be very obvious.

Your TikToks might normally get 10,000+ views each and then, seemingly out of the blue, your latest videos are barely reaching 50 views a piece. 

Other social platforms, such as Twitter and Instagram, also may shadowban accounts. If one thinks they might be experiencing a shadowban on Twitter, one only has to conduct a Twitter search for one's own Tweets. If they aren't visible, one might be shadowbanned. An Instagram shadowban may be executed via undiscoverable broken hashtags on the explore page. 

How Can I Tell If My TikTok Is Shadowbanned?

Just because it might seem like your organic reach dropped tremendously doesn't mean that you've been shadowbanned.  There is no official "TikTok shadow ban checker", tiktok shadowban tester or remover tool out there (that would be amazing), but there is an easy way to tell for sure. 

If you've received any traffic from the #foryou page on your recent content, your account is NOT shadowbanned.

Here's how to do the simple TikTok shadowban test...

First, open up a video that you posted AFTER you believe the shadow ban started that has been live for at least 72 hours TikTok mobile app on. 

From the video click the "..." towards the bottom right.