IG claims shadowbans are not real. Thoughts?

Just curious to know what everyone thinks--read an article from TechCrunch reporting on a meeting with Facebook, in which Facebook reps claimed (according to the article) "Shadowbanning is not a real thing, and Instagram says it doesn’t hide people’s content for posting too many hashtags or taking other actions."

What is your take on this?

They lie

Postercamp said:

They lie

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Short and to the point. I like it.

They always use specific terminology but there is always a catch. So shadowban exists but it's described differently.

Alex D. said:

They always use specific terminology but there is always a catch. So shadowban exists but it's described differently.

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So maybe "hide" is the operative word here? As in, "we don't hide posts, but..."?

Ive never been a victim of a shadow ban (I think) but it seems as though IG was encouraging the use of as many hashtags as you want.

Do you guys still believe them, after all its the same sukerberg behind ig too

u2u2u2 said:

Do you guys still believe them, after all its the same sukerberg behind ig too

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True. Why do you think they don't want to fess up to it?

absolute fucking bullshit. any heavily conservative page has experienced somesort of shadowban with their posts not showing up on their own hashtags..

They're full of shit. CA scandal have just taught them to hide it and lie better now.

inflalgoresearch said:

Just curious to know what everyone thinks--read an article from TechCrunch reporting on a meeting with Facebook, in which Facebook reps claimed (according to the article) "Shadowbanning is not a real thing, and Instagram says it doesn’t hide people’s content for posting too many hashtags or taking other actions."

What is your take on this?

Click to expand...

As per facebook the only thing thats exists is their own language and terms. Rest everything doesn't exists. So if they use a different term for shadowban with different paramters then shadowban technically doesn't exists, it could be shadowblock

I had a very interesting discussion on this exact topic in December last year with some Facebook executives. It was a very honest, open discussion and I felt they were being 100% genuine when saying there is no such thing as a shadowban (or anything like it).

The feed is entirely algorithm-based with no manual actions to modify reach. It is, however, very dependant on various other factors such as engagement rate. In short: No shadowban.

yakuzaemme said:

I had a very interesting discussion on this exact topic in December last year with some Facebook executives. It was a very honest, open discussion and I felt they were being 100% genuine when saying there is no such thing as a shadowban (or anything like it).

The feed is entirely algorithm-based with no manual actions to modify reach. It is, however, very dependant on various other factors such as engagement rate. In short: No shadowban.

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Correct. No shadowban. Just an algorithm that vets your content and adjust it to your following accordingly. That the algorithm does not show it in chronological time, or after many hours, or none at all is just how it works. In English, this is the new Alternative Facts. Started by our own President Trump.

I've personally experienced this "algorithm" / "shadowban" in my own accounts and accounts that I manage for companies and influencers. You can't tell me it's not happening.

colorme said:

Correct. No shadowban. Just an algorithm that vets your content and adjust it to your following accordingly. That the algorithm does not show it in chronological time, or after many hours, or none at all is just how it works. In English, this is the new Alternative Facts. Started by our own President Trump.

I've personally experienced this "algorithm" / "shadowban" in my own accounts and accounts that I manage for companies and influencers. You can't tell me it's not happening.

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Of course it's happening. The algorithm bases your organic reach based on factors such as engagement (both on previous and within X minutes of posting), time of the day, upload history (frequency) and many more.

The perception of shadowban (how it used to be in the past) is that IG either manually enters your account and reduce reach/hide completely or that it adjust reach based on your hashtag, follow/unfollow or DM history.

If that I know is true, it does not.

yakuzaemme said:

Of course it's happening. The algorithm bases your organic reach based on factors such as engagement (both on previous and within X minutes of posting), time of the day, upload history (frequency) and many more.

The perception of shadowban (how it used to be in the past) is that IG either manually enters your account and reduce reach/hide completely or that it adjust reach based on your hashtag, follow/unfollow or DM history.

If that I know is true, it does not.

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Do you think organic reach is "penalized" as a result of certain actions (e.g. posting too many comments in too short a period of time)?

inflalgoresearch said:

Do you think organic reach is "penalized" as a result of certain actions (e.g. posting too many comments in too short a period of time)?

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Personally, no. I had a 30-minute meeting with Facebook asking various questions about reach and where they think it's heading, and back in December, reach was ONLY connected with your posts. Your bio, DMs, amount of followers/followings, commenting history or whatever are not connected to it.

At the end, all algorithms is pure logic. Them implemented something non-logical (as in Reduce user reaches by X if spam-comments > Y) is far from logical and would only mess with their data long-term.

yakuzaemme said:

I had a very interesting discussion on this exact topic in December last year with some Facebook executives. It was a very honest, open discussion and I felt they were being 100% genuine when saying there is no such thing as a shadowban (or anything like it).

The feed is entirely algorithm-based with no manual actions to modify reach. It is, however, very dependant on various other factors such as engagement rate. In short: No shadowban.

Click to expand...

Of course, its algorithm doing it all, banning block and all sorts of limitations. Facebook doesn't hire to limit individual accounts But the algo has been coded such a way to shadow ban or silent block where people don't get notifications or post doesn't show up for hash tags. No company openly tells about its algorithm, it's millions of users who find these things . Why do you think accounts have authority or certain scores ?? So they can classify them and treat them accordingly.

yakuzaemme said:

I had a very interesting discussion on this exact topic in December last year with some Facebook executives. It was a very honest, open discussion and I felt they were being 100% genuine when saying there is no such thing as a shadowban (or anything like it).

The feed is entirely algorithm-based with no manual actions to modify reach. It is, however, very dependant on various other factors such as engagement rate. In short: No shadowban.

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let me guess the exec's name: rob?

oh its real esp if one of your post get deleted

Postercamp said:

They lie

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Alex D. said:

They always use specific terminology but there is always a catch. So shadowban exists but it's described differently.

Click to expand...

Edvard Benk said:

absolute fucking bullshit. any heavily conservative page has experienced somesort of shadowban with their posts not showing up on their own hashtags..

They're full of shit. CA scandal have just taught them to hide it and lie better now.

Click to expand...

proxified said:

As per facebook the only thing thats exists is their own language and terms. Rest everything doesn't exists. So if they use a different term for shadowban with different paramters then shadowban technically doesn't exists, it could be shadowblock

Click to expand...

colorme said:

Correct. No shadowban. Just an algorithm that vets your content and adjust it to your following accordingly. That the algorithm does not show it in chronological time, or after many hours, or none at all is just how it works. In English, this is the new Alternative Facts. Started by our own President Trump.

I've personally experienced this "algorithm" / "shadowban" in my own accounts and accounts that I manage for companies and influencers. You can't tell me it's not happening.

Click to expand...

u2u2u2 said:

Of course, its algorithm doing it all, banning block and all sorts of limitations. Facebook doesn't hire to limit individual accounts But the algo has been coded such a way to shadow ban or silent block where people don't get notifications or post doesn't show up for hash tags. No company openly tells about its algorithm, it's millions of users who find these things . Why do you think accounts have authority or certain scores ?? So they can classify them and treat them accordingly.

Click to expand...

JohnH4012 said:

oh its real esp if one of your post get deleted

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More questions:

• Does anyone have a screenshot of analytics before/after a shadowban to share as an example?
• So, your organic reach/engagement drops during a shadowban, but you still get some engagement, which suggests you're reaching certain users (but not others). Which users are you still reaching?

In my experience there are a few types of shadowbans

1. post by post shadow ban

this is when you keep using the same hashtags over and over in the comments but its only for certain accounts ive seen accounts use the same hashtags over and over again with no harm to their account and videos still go viral but if i use the same hashtags twice my analytics will show no impressions from hashtags or explore just depends on the account...but once you switch up hashtags your good

2. Post deletion shadowban

this is when your post gets deleted for breaking community guidelines which puts you on a automatic 14 day shadowban (happened to me 4 times) this is when your post is reported over and over for violence of bulling of IG think you are hashtag stuffing and your post is not related to the hashtags you are using and too many people click the "dont show this post for the hashtag" button and IG deletes your post for violating TOS ......with this ban you wont show on hashtags and is hard af to get on the explore page unless the content is just too good for IG to deny and spreads it anyway to keep users on the platform with this shadowban my post go from 100s of thousands of views to only a few thousand for 2 weeks straight its frustrating

3. After you come out of a post deletion shadow ban a few time

This is the one i am currently on because my post got deleted for hashtags stuffing,,,now my stories dont rank for hashtags also if i put hashtags in my comments my post is limited on reach and sometimes when i put them in the caption also (i am still testing this) so now i am not using any hashtags because i have to gain Instagram's trust again once i am granted hashtag reach again (which isnt really that important anyway unless you get the top hashtag which is hard) i will only use one or 2 hashtags in the caption which are super related to the post

HOPE THIS HELPS