Shadow banning: Why don't some posts appear on your social media feed?

Why is it that on platforms like Facebook, X, Instagram, and TikTok, some social media users’ posts don’t show up on their followers’ timelines, unless they manually go to their accounts to scroll through?

It has been a much-debated subject for years. Increasingly, with the power of social media algorithms – those mysterious systems deciding which posts land at the top of your feed and which ones you might never see based on content you interact with or share, users you interact with most, and what’s trending.

But algorithmic design aside, there is a perception that social media companies deliberately suppress some posts without notifying account holders, commonly referred to as ‘shadow banning’ or ‘algorithmic suppression.’

It occurs when a user’s content becomes less visible through reduced reach, lower ranking in feeds, or exclusion from search results, without an explicit ban or suspension from a platform.

Unlike account suspensions, shadow bans are subtle, analysts say, making them difficult to detect.

Earlier this month, popular Kenyan activist Boniface Mwangi complained on X that he had been shadow-banned on several platforms, accusing President William Ruto’s administration of “banning keywords and using algorithm manipulation to reduce my reach”.

“I have over 3 million followers across all social media platforms, but some posts get fewer than 5,000 views,” he wrote on September 6 to a flurry of comments from followers who said they no longer saw many of his posts on their timelines in recent weeks.

Yet Mwangi, who recently announced his bid to run for president in 2027, is not the first; politicians, activists, and businesses around the world have for years accused social media giants of censorship using algorithms, whose operation still remains largely opaque.

Generally, social media platforms limit content that might get them in trouble with authorities, users, or advertisers through the moderation of what is posted on their platforms.

This includes cracking down on misinformation or anything that goes against their respective community guidelines.

For X, the platform formerly Twitter says on its website that it does not shadow ban content: “We don’t shadow ban! Ever. We do rank posts to create a more relevant experience for you, however, and you’re always able to see posts from people you follow.”

Following his 2022 buyout of the platform, however, the American billionaire Elon Musk released internal documents that showed that Twitter was using “visibility filtering” to limit the reach of certain accounts, particularly around sensitive or controversial topics.

Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram, and Threads, has denied deliberately suppressing particular voices.

Even so, the company last year announced it would begin limiting political content on users’ feeds – posts “likely to mention governments, elections, or social topics that affect a group of people and/or society at large,” it said.

A July 2025 blog post on Meta’s website says the company now treats political content “more like other types of content on our platforms” and may recommend it from accounts that people don't already follow.

Facebook, Instagram, and Threads now have settings that users can update to adjust the amount of political content they see or have recommended to them.

Instagram’s chief, Adam Mosseri, said this February that the company does not limit the reach to one’s followers, although for recommendations to non-followers, “there are some instances where we will limit reach, because we bear more responsibility when we’re showing content from accounts people don’t follow.”

The platform also has an “Account Status” section where creators can see if their content is being restricted.

At the same time, Meta acknowledges that posts can be “downranked” in feeds if they are flagged as misinformation, violate community guidelines, or come close to prohibited content.

Google-owned YouTube has previously said that if a video doesn’t violate the app’s community guidelines but “comes close” to doing so, it may be ineligible for algorithmic recommendations.

Meanwhile, TikTok, the popular Chinese video-sharing platform, maintains that it moderates only to uphold community guidelines, but leaked internal documents in 2019 showed that the network instructed its moderators to censor videos criticising, among many other things, China’s socialist system.

Additionally, the documents showed instructions to limit visibility of content from certain groups deemed not very attractive, including people with disabilities.

Governments can always reach out to social media companies: Meta, for instance, hands over data on millions of users’ accounts to governments upon request “in accordance with applicable law and our terms of service.” This could be for legal process or emergency disclosure reasons.

It is, however, difficult to prove the governments’ role in the shadow-banning of social media posts by users in their countries.

Still, some researchers say authorities can influence the social media platforms' moderation policies, which could include some content not being favoured.

This is more so in countries where governments seek to crack down on free expression or police certain forms of speech more aggressively, where these platforms must frequently respond to demands to remove material or risk consequences like fines or bans.

As a workaround, digital strategists suggest using analytics tools to monitor engagement metrics and detect unusual drops that could indicate suppressed visibility, and expanding to multiple social media platforms to help cushion against algorithmic changes.

Internet creators are also advised to build parallel channels, such as newsletters and websites, where they have more control.