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> 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. Would they admi

> 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. Would they admit it exists in either case?

Maarten88 8y ago
I was wondering how they know it is not a real thing: they use machine learning, they feed the content with all metadata in and then let some trained AI logic filter/prioritize it. If the learning algorithm has found that most people don't 'engage' with content from certain people, or with a certain type of content, it might filter it without being intentionally being programmed in, right?
- setr 8y ago
  Thats not really the same as shadowbanning though is it? What you've described isn't much different than you posting with few to no followers; its just being further enforced by the recommendation engine. But ultimately, hopefully, its still a reflection of the community's taste, and not the administration. Shadowbanning is more of an explicit denial of the community taken by someone who doesn't represent the community, but rather the hosting service itself. It might align with community taste, but also might not.
jeromegv 8y ago
I think what people have said about shadowbanning in the past was not that your post were hidden from your followers feed but more than your post would not be visible within the hashtag section. So let's say you keep spamming your posts with 30 unrelevant hashtags, instagram would stop showing your post within the hashtag page. Instagram didn't explicitly say it was not happening and they could make a case that it isn't the true definition of shadow banning. But it seems that many people have observed this behavior in the past.
- okmokmz 8y ago
  > not that your post were hidden from your followers feed but more than your post would not be visible within the hashtag section I had an account that was shadowbanned, or at least seemed to be, and I was able to confirm that my posts didn't show up under hashtags or in followers feeds. In order to see my posts you had to manually navigate to my page, which caused my likes to drop to less than 5 per post
patorjk 8y ago
There are lots of videos on YouTube where people discuss being shadow banned. Basically their engagement plummets and they stop showing up for hashtags and (sometimes) the explore page. They may also be showing up less for their followers too. Maybe Instagram doesn't think of it as banning and thinks of it more as penalties. Your content isn't hidden, but it's not promoted as much.
- yakshaving_jgt 8y ago
  I'm pretty sure this has been my experience on Instagram. Two years ago, every post I made had between 400 and 800 likes. Now everything gets about 130.
okmokmz 8y ago
This has happened to me. I had an account at one point that used to get 100+ likes on the majority of posts. After the introduction of the feed algorithm it went down to about 40-60 likes regularly, then at some point it dropped to <5 likes per post. I created a separate account on a computer that had never been used to login to an Instagram account before while at starbucks, and confirmed that none of the posts from my primary account were showing up under any of the hashtags I use regularly. I then followed my primary account from the temp account, as well as a few other random accounts, and the posts from my primary account never showed up in my feed. After a couple weeks of trying to resolve this with no luck I chose to stop using the account. I checked every couple weeks, and it took 4+ months for the posts to start appearing under hashtags and on users feeds again. I ultimately decided to just delete my account

> 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. Would they admit it exists in either case?

Maarten88 8y ago

I was wondering how they know it is not a real thing: they use machine learning, they feed the content with all metadata in and then let some trained AI logic filter/prioritize it. If the learning algorithm has found that most people don't 'engage' with content from certain people, or with a certain type of content, it might filter it without being intentionally being programmed in, right?

setr 8y ago
Thats not really the same as shadowbanning though is it? What you've described isn't much different than you posting with few to no followers; its just being further enforced by the recommendation engine. But ultimately, hopefully, its still a reflection of the community's taste, and not the administration. Shadowbanning is more of an explicit denial of the community taken by someone who doesn't represent the community, but rather the hosting service itself. It might align with community taste, but also might not.

jeromegv 8y ago

I think what people have said about shadowbanning in the past was not that your post were hidden from your followers feed but more than your post would not be visible within the hashtag section. So let's say you keep spamming your posts with 30 unrelevant hashtags, instagram would stop showing your post within the hashtag page. Instagram didn't explicitly say it was not happening and they could make a case that it isn't the true definition of shadow banning. But it seems that many people have observed this behavior in the past.

okmokmz 8y ago
> not that your post were hidden from your followers feed but more than your post would not be visible within the hashtag section I had an account that was shadowbanned, or at least seemed to be, and I was able to confirm that my posts didn't show up under hashtags or in followers feeds. In order to see my posts you had to manually navigate to my page, which caused my likes to drop to less than 5 per post

patorjk 8y ago

There are lots of videos on YouTube where people discuss being shadow banned. Basically their engagement plummets and they stop showing up for hashtags and (sometimes) the explore page. They may also be showing up less for their followers too. Maybe Instagram doesn't think of it as banning and thinks of it more as penalties. Your content isn't hidden, but it's not promoted as much.

yakshaving_jgt 8y ago
I'm pretty sure this has been my experience on Instagram. Two years ago, every post I made had between 400 and 800 likes. Now everything gets about 130.

okmokmz 8y ago

This has happened to me. I had an account at one point that used to get 100+ likes on the majority of posts. After the introduction of the feed algorithm it went down to about 40-60 likes regularly, then at some point it dropped to <5 likes per post. I created a separate account on a computer that had never been used to login to an Instagram account before while at starbucks, and confirmed that none of the posts from my primary account were showing up under any of the hashtags I use regularly. I then followed my primary account from the temp account, as well as a few other random accounts, and the posts from my primary account never showed up in my feed. After a couple weeks of trying to resolve this with no luck I chose to stop using the account. I checked every couple weeks, and it took 4+ months for the posts to start appearing under hashtags and on users feeds again. I ultimately decided to just delete my account