It’s definitely real. I posted a video that was flagged twice, and my engagement disappeared while I appealed. The first time it was appealed and approved, my engagement came flying back. The second time (same video) was flagged again, shadowbanned for 48 hours, then engagement came back.
Sucked because I had one vid that went semi viral and was bringing in killer early engagement (317k views), but stopped as soon as the account was shadowbanned.
Unlike IG (which doesn’t have a shadowban, that’s a lack of understanding of trust score/algorithm), Tiktok definitely does unless someone more educated can tell me otherwise