Twitter Shadowban: How To Check if You’re Shadowbanned

Am I Shadowbanned on Twitter? If you’ve noticed a sudden and significant drop in engagement, you might wonder: Am I shadowbanned? A Twitter shadowban occurs when the platform limits your content’s visibility, often due to flagged behavior or policy violations. While it feels like tweeting into the void, there’s hope. You can confirm a ban and take steps to fix it. 

The appeal process involves providing a detailed explanation and evidence showing compliance with Twitter’s guidelines. This guide will help you understand shadowbans, how to identify them, and what to do next. Reclaim your voice and ensure your tweets get the attention they deserve.

What Does Twitter Shadowban Mean?

It is a technique the social media platform uses to restrict the reach of your account. However, it doesn’t mean they’ve outright banned your account.

According to Twitter’s blog post, they don’t hand out shadow bans to users. However, they make it harder for other users to find your posts. They use an algorithm to decrease the visibility of your tweets. Or they hide your content from non-followers. Technically, it is a shadow ban, even if they don’t call it by this name.

Why does Twitter resort to shadow banning in the first place? If they find your tweets violate (or nearly violate) their rules and policies, they’ll go this route.

What Happens When Your Account Is Shadowbanned on Twitter?

When your account is shadowbanned on Twitter, the platform takes the following actions against your account:

• Reduce the reach of your tweets significantly: Your posts won’t appear in search results, recommended notifications, and trends. It also disappears from the For You section.
• Prevent ads from running along with your tweets: Twitter only recently implemented this, i.e., in April 2023.
• Ask you to remove the rule-violating tweet: You have up to 14 days to take action.

The platform now places a label next to your tweet. It informs you and other users about limiting the visibility of the post. If another user reports your direct message (DM) to them, you can no longer contact them. They won’t receive any message you send them.

7 Factors That Twitter Uses To Determine if It Should Shadowban Your Account

Twitter uses several factors like the ones highlighted below to determine what to do:

1. Your account’s date of creation.
2. Whether you have a verified phone number or email address.
3. Whether you tag Twitter accounts, you don’t follow them repeatedly.
4. Your Twitter activity, i.e., how often do you tweet, mention, and retweet on the platform?
5. If Twitter took action against your account for an earlier violation.
6. Is your profile information complete, i.e., name, username, bio, and profile photo?
7. How do Twitter users interact with your account? Do they block, follow, or mute your profile?

It’s similar to a Twitter block, but the platform blocks your account. There are also other factors, but Twitter doesn’t mention them.

How Long Does Twitter Shadowban Last?

If this is your first violation, it can last 24 – 72 hours (1 – 3 days). The ban length will increase when you regularly break the platform’s rules.

Sometimes, you may not get a shadow ban despite the platform limiting your reach. Twitter calls this a public interest exception. Even though your tweet breaks its rules, the platform allows the post to remain. 

Everyone reading the tweet will see a note explaining this. However, several criteria must be met to qualify for this exception. At the time of writing this article, this is only available to the government and elected officials now.

Does this mean you can post anything if you’re an official? No, as the platform weighs the value it provides to public interest against the possibility of causing harm. The post won’t qualify for the exception if the latter is greater.

Even if your tweet doesn’t violate any policies, it may restrict your post. In this case, the platform considers the age of the target audience. Users below 18 won’t be able to see your post. Also, anyone who doesn’t provide their date of birth will have the same issue.nto great detail on this topic. If this is your first violation, it can last 24 – 72 hours (1 – 3 days). The ban length will increase when you regularly break the platform’s rules.

Why Am I Shadowbanned on Twitter?

Let’s investigate the shadowbanned Twitter issue. As highlighted earlier, it involves the platform’s rules and policies. 

Your Account Behavior Resembles a Bot

Twitter considers your account behavior before taking any restrictive action. Here are a few red flags:

• Posting multiple similar tweets to get a topic or hashtag trending. Or creating several accounts to achieve the same goals.
• Adding unrelated hashtags to tweets.
• Ask users to engage with specific tweets by providing monetary or other rewards.
• Spending money on various rule-breaking websites to boost engagement
• Mass following or unfollowing Twitter accounts within a short period. Consider trying the Twitter Mass Unfollow Extension as a safer way to manage your followers without penalty.

In other words, Twitter assumes you’re trying to manipulate the conversation on their platform. If you try to spam the algorithm, Twitter will put up roadblocks. For instance, you must verify your phone number or email address. Or, it will ask you to complete the CAPTCHA.

Failure to do so within a specific time frame will result in Twitter taking action. This is because it considers any account that uses automation as a bot.

Your Account Is Impersonating Another User or Organization

Impersonation is one of the reasons for the shadow-banned Twitter issue on your account. The social media platform wants to keep all conversations on its site authentic. It is a policy violation if you’ve impersonated anyone, a person, group, or organization. The platform assumes you’re trying to mislead users, even if it is a joke or meme.

Your Tweets Contain Manipulated or Dangerous Content

Have you recently posted any manipulated content like deepfakes or photoshopped images? Did you retweet or share a link to the same? If yes, this is why you have a ghost ban on Twitter.

Sure, deepfakes are interesting, but X doesn’t think so. The platform is against any user or organization trying to influence user behavior negatively.

Tweets shouldn’t affect the platform’s search quality. Any post that affects the platform directly or indirectly for the worse falls into this category. Promoting violence, hate, terrorism, or anything illegal is a strict no.

Remember that you can share sensitive content if you mark it as such. However, it will reduce the reach of your posts. To ensure a safer browsing experience, learn how to turn off sensitive content on Twitter through your account settings.n, “Am I shadow banned on Twitter?” Sure, deep fakes are interesting, but Twitter doesn’t think so. The platform is against any user or organization trying to influence user behavior negatively.

Your Tweets Attack Government Functions

Twitter takes government processes like elections seriously. Any attempt to mislead users on this subject forces the platform to act. Any tweet that confuses users or tries to silence participation in these processes is a violation. Make sure you don’t engage in such activities to avoid a shadow ban on Twitter.

How To Check if My Twitter Account Is Shadowbanned

You know the answers to why the platform hands out a Twitter shadow ban. But how do you check for Twitter shadowbans to know your account’s status? Here’s how you can do a shadowban test: Twitter edition

Check Your Shadowban Status on Twitter With Statistics

Your tweet’s statistics provide insight into whether your account has a shadow ban. Look at your latest post and check the number of:

• Comments
• Likes
• Impressions
• Profile visits
• Retweet
• View count

Similarly, do the same for older posts and compare the statistics. Although there will be variability in these figures, a considerable drop-off is a sign.

Test Your Twitter Profile Visibility for a Shadowban

Is my Twitter shadowbanned? Check your account’s visibility to get the answer to this question. Here’s how you can verify your profile’s status:

1. Ask someone who doesn’t follow you to search for your Twitter account.
2. Use your alternative account to look for the one you suspect is shadowbanned.

When the platform deals with a Twitter search ban, it prevents your account from appearing on the search results page. There is also a search suggestion ban on Twitter.

Comment Labels Indicate Shadowbanning on Twitter

Here’s how to check comment labels for shadowbans:

1. Search for any public account on Twitter. Copy the profile’s URL.
2. Leave a comment in one of their tweets.
3. Log out from your Twitter account.
4. Open incognito mode in your browser and paste the profile URL.
5. Go to the tweet you commented on and open it.
6. Check whether your comment appears towards the bottom. Or if there are labels that indicate the tweet contains misleading information. In either case, your account has a shadow ban from Twitter.

Utilize Third-Party Tools To Check if You Are Shadowbanned on Twitter

Third-party tools can do a Twitter shadowban search. Here are two handy websites you can use:

• HiSubway
• Shadowban Yurisa

Enter your username into these tools, and they’ll check your account for a shadow ban.

How To Get Unshadowbanned on Twitter

Is there a Twitter shadowban fix so you can continue using your account? Luckily, the platform doesn’t go to great lengths to restrict your account. There are three solutions on how to remove shadowban Twitter:

1. Stop all social activity for 3 days minimum: As highlighted earlier, the platform can take up to 3 days to remove the shadow ban. In the meantime, don’t try to post anything. Avoid replying to other tweets or retweeting any posts. Similarly, you shouldn’t directly message any user. As long as you don’t continue to break their policies, they will reinstate your account. After three days, you won’t have a ghost ban.
2. Delete tweets to remove shadowban Twitter penalties: If you know some tweets violate Twitter’s rules, delete them immediately. This will remove the shadowban on your profile.
3. Contact customer support for further assistance: Say you’ve done the above steps but still don’t see any reversal in the shadow ban. If this is the case, contact the platform’s customer support. Please explain your situation in detail so they understand it clearly. If all goes well, the platform will remove the shadow. You must delete all tweets you believe break the platform’s rules. Look for these types of posts and remove them immediately. Maintaining a clean profile is better than allowing those tweets to stay.

Should You Worry When You Are Shadowbanned on Twitter? Answered

It’s always difficult to deal with a Twitter shadowban. Research the facts before posting anything on your profile. Don’t impersonate anyone on or outside the platform. Avoid hot takes as much as possible.

Removing tweets is a lot of work if you’ve posted multiple rule-violating posts. What if your account was part of a hack, and you need to bulk delete several posts? Instead of going through your account post by post, use TweetDelete. Simplify deleting tweets and give your Twitter timeline a clean look today!

FAQ

Are you still unsure about shadowbans on X? This section addresses people’s queries on this topic.