Shadow banning is being seen more and more across popular social media platforms, such as Instagram, Facebook and TikTok. 

Creators are seeing interaction on their content drastically decrease which, for those whose main source of income is brought in by their content, causes undue stress and financial difficulties. These people rely on content reaching people, it is their livelihood. 

It is our belief that these accounts are being shadow banned to censor views that go against traditional ideologies. The accounts we see shadow banned are the ones that speak up for those who feel they don't have a voice. This could be fat people, members of the LGBTQIA2S+ community and generally people with different views to what certain members of society deem "acceptable". 

These accounts do no harm, in fact they empower people and leave them feeling seen, heard and most importantly, loved. When we are brought up in a world where a certain standard of beauty is the only one deemed acceptable to be seen in the media, it has such a detrimental effect on people's mental health. 

Creators should be freely allowed to express their views and post without fear of being banned or shadow banned, just because they go against what Instagram believe is "appropriate". In the last 6 months alone, I have seen accounts banned because they posted covered up photos of their own (female) bodies, where no "sensitive" areas were exposed (one in particular was showing that women having armpit hair was normal), I've seen ladies who are slightly bigger than the societal standards of beauty be banned because they posted content wearing a bikini showing people how to love themselves no matter their size, gender, race etc. I've seen artists who create artwork that empowers women and other people to love their bits and bobs be shadow banned for no reason at all! 

But at the same time, I've seen people who meet the standards posting similar images/content and not suffering the same consequences. And it's usually women who are being censored like this, too. Why?!

Basically, anyone who doesn't meet a certain standard doesn't make the cut. It's sickening. It's not just the creators being negatively impacted, it's the people who follow them. People like me who are boosted by these creators and their content, people who genuinely feel empowered when they interact with their favourite creators. Seeing society's "standard" day in, day out, is exhausting when you don't fit in and it has such a detrimental effect on mental health and can be so damaging to anyone. 

What do we want to happen?

We want the likes of Meta/Instagram to cease the use of shadow-banning and instead support content creators by giving them useful advice and at least reasons why content may be disallowed. They should have impartial humans who are contactable rather than bots answering appeals. They need to allow real diversity rather than censor it. 

What is shadow banning?

Shadow banning is where sites, such as Instagram, Tik-Tok, Reddit etc. block or partially block users or their content from areas of the site where they may easily be found (for example, stories don't get seen, reels don't come up on for you pages, posts don't show on feeds and you often have to search a person's whole tag to find their profile). The user in question is not notified of this ban but often find out when they notice a severe dip in views and content interaction. Because no-one is given a reason, it is virtually impossible to get past and resolve.