****ing aye I am. I’m yet to see an argument that supports an actual IG shadowban versus Algorithm/Profile Trust score/Behaviour flagging, not to mention IG themselves said there’s no such thing. It’s always the same mY sTuFf DoEsN’t ApPeAr In FeEdS iG iS bRoKeN’ crap.
There’s a difference between content flagging based on low trust score/low quality behaviors (think FB ads), versus a ‘shadowban’, which Tiktok definitely has. People throw that term around like wildfire which always sets off a chain of BS with no actual correlated evidence.
I mean its 2019 instagram. If shadowbanning on IG was a thing, literally every single one of us would get zero engagement because we’ve all done thing wrong thing at one point whether we realise it/admit it or not.
I do believe the Instagram shadowban is a very real thing, but most cry wolf when a post does not do well and label it as “shadowban”.
I’ve personally grown many, many accounts (mostly using automation), and there have been some very real cases of a real shadowban where you actually don’t rank in hashtags or your reach is restricted and can’t hit the explore page.
I don’t think any social media site will openly advertise that they restrict users reach based on many factors like violations, logins, actions, and a shit load of other data points.
From a discussion point though - not actually ranking in hashtags is super simple algorithm though? Where no two people see the same thing based on collected data (behaviors and other data)? I find there is way too many ways to explain why a post wont appear in hashtag feeds. Reach is typically trust score/previous behaviours (more fb ads algorithms), not to mention IG is crushing reach this year while it goes after inauthentic behaviours. So low trust score (similar to fb pages) based on flags and behaviors = lowered reach. There’s so much more to it than just a simple shadowban these days. Most people leave out the inauthentic behaviours (comment pods, leveraging hashtags that cheap SMM panels etc etc). It’s like ranked tags and explore is super super personalised these days, and changes almost on the fly as your behaviors provide more data.
So for eg I wont see your sandwich pic in ranked tags if I typically dont engage sandwich pics or profiles similar to yours, especially if your profile’s quality score is low based on your behaviors.
I’ve been working in automation and FB ads pretty much since they launched, and the patterns in IG is almost identical to what they have done with ads and pages, starting with the changes to chronological/behaviors based order of posts in peoples timelines. Thats just what I have observed. I’ve seen accounts flagged for a variety of obvious (not typically to the user, but to me) reasons, but not any sign of an actual shadowban on IG, but personally experienced it on tiktok for sure. Every example I’ve been sent on IG to date has been explainable
Your thoughts? Again totally a discussion, curious at what other people think.
EDIT: Just saw you mention another thread, all good man this is semi off topic. I was more trying to compare the perception of a shadowban on IG versus an obvious one Tiktok.
Hey guys the bot seems to work pretty well I posted a video that got 11k views. Which is my highest viewed video. I would suggest trying the follow method by yourself and see what happens. I think you get capped for the day at 150-160. Try to follow a bunch of people right after you post it seems to boost your engagement and you are more likely to get on the for you page.
How often are you posting?