Shadowbans are an invisible ban that limits the reach of your tweets without handing you a suspension. Twitter uses it to silence trolls and spammers without others in the community noticing them. They also use it to limit the visibility of people who break rules such as spamming, using abusive language, or posting manipulated content.
A shadowban will prevent you from getting recommended to people who follow your account, or from showing up in searches. This will have a negative impact on your engagement and growth. However, there is no reason to panic if you get a shadowban. They aren’t permanent and you can work to reverse them.
In a 2023 survey, a quarter of current and recent Twitter users said they were not very or not at all likely to be on the platform a year from now. However, the billionaire founder of Tesla and SpaceX, Elon Musk, claims that Twitter is working on software updates to show your true account status so you can clearly see if you’ve been shadowbanned, the reason why, and how to appeal the decision.
Delete any tweets, comments or reposts that break the rules of Twitter. The platform will then automatically unshadowban you. However, if you’ve been doing this regularly and it’s an ongoing issue, you may want to contact customer support to explain the situation to them in detail. This way, they can verify if there’s been a mistake and reverse the decision.