Guide
How to remove TikTok Shadow Ban? What is Shadow Ban?
Published8 Feb 2020
Written byJosh
What is TikTok Shadow Ban?
Tiktok Shadow Ban is a temporary ban on your account, but it doesn't restrict your content uploading. There is no official information from TikTok to know until when this ban will last. It’s an automatic process done by Tiktok’s algorithm to protect against spam, adult content, and copyright issues. If your account is shadowbanned, your videos won't show in the For You page feed or in the search results.
How to know if your account is Shadow Banned?
TikTok app won't tell you if your account is shadow banned. If your videos don't get any For You page views, it probably means that your videos are shadow banned. This is especially if you have many followers and got good view counts previously.
By using TikTok Pro feature you can see if your views are from For You page or not. Every video on TikTok goes to For You page at least for a while. So if For You page is not on the list of sources for video views, it probably means that your account is shadow banned.
Remember that your followers can still usually view and see your videos even though your account would be shadow banned.
How to remove TikTok Shadow Ban?
TikTok has not officially said that Shadow Bans exist, but there are many cases online that prove otherwise. To remove your ban, you should remove the videos that might have caused the ban and wait few days before posting new content. Some people said that it took even two weeks before that ban went away. Before deleting the app, please note that it will also delete all your drafts and you can not get them back anymore!
If this doesn't help, clear cache from your TikTok app, log out, delete the app and reboot your phone. Wait for at least 10 minutes before re-downloading the app and logging back in. This has worked for many users, including us. Remember that when you log out, you should know what is your password so that you can log back in!
How to prevent shadow ban in the future?
You probably don't want to get Shadow Banned again in the future. Follow our guide and you should be good to go.
Don't post copyrighted content! If you upload other peoples videos or videos you found online, it is a copyright issue. This means that TikTok might take down your video and flag your account. So post only original content made and/or edited by you.
No nudity! TikTok is very strict about not showing any nudity on the app, as there are many young users on the app. TikTok has been on the news about accusations of spoiling the young people, so they want to do their share of protecting minors. So do not post any adult content or nudes.
Keep it legal! TikTok bans videos and/or users with illegal content. So do not post videos about drugs, guns, knives, violence or any other illegal material.
Good lightning! Because TikTok analyzes all videos with their algorithm, it is important that video is bright enough. This is for the fact that they use the algorithm to detect if there are any forbidden objects or nudity in the video. If the video is too dark the algorithm doesn't work, and it will flag the video just in case.
Use only valid songs! If the audio for video is under review or it says that 'Trying to obtain copyright', the video will be shadow banned for sure. This is because TikTok doesn't want to risk using audio that would be copyright issue.
One account per device! There are rumours that if you have more than one account per device, you'll get banned. We are not sure about this one, but at least you have been warned now!
There are also many mentions that TikTok might shadow ban videos that do not contain faces, human voices or natural body movements. Many videos that do not contain these still end up in For You page, but this is also something you might want to consider when coming up with new content. So keep things human for the algorithm to promote your video!
Josh from Exolyt
This article is written by Josh, who works at Exolyt as a Senior Social Media Consultant. Josh helps influencers, marketers and TikTok content creators to improve their engagement and take the most out of their TikTok accounts.