Instagram has introduced a new feature that will inform you if other users cannot suggest your posts to them. Before, users were not informed when a platform intervened, a practice known as “shadow banning,” which prevented posts from showing up in other users’ feeds. That phrase is not used on Instagram. It claims that the new tool would let consumers know if their account has limits because they disobeyed the rules. Instagram’s CEO, Adam Mosseri, stated that the choice was made for “transparency.”
“Sometimes your account can end up in a state where it’s not eligible for your photos and videos to show up in [our] recommendations,” he said.
“If you have posted things that violate our ‘recommendability’ guidelines or recommendation guidelines… you can end up in a state where your content won’t be recommended,” Mr Mosseri explains.
Instagram users will be able to edit or delete posts which have fallen foul of the platform’s rules. They will also be able to appeal to Instagram if they feel any content has been flagged in error.
People can check the status of their account in the Instagram app by selecting their profile, opening the menu, then selecting: settings, account, and account status.
Dr Carolina Are, a content moderation researcher at the Centre For Digital Citizens at Northumbria University, said Instagram has historically had a major issue with people having posts ‘hidden’ without their knowledge.
“The platform did not notify us about shadow banning,” she said. “For ages, Instagram denied that it was ever a thing.”
Dr Are is also a content creator on Instagram, where she often posts videos as a pole dance instructor – and says she has experienced so-called shadow banning herself.
“I personally received an apology [from Instagram] for the shadow ban of pole-dancing in 2019,” she said.
“They said the hashtags were blocked ‘in error’… this is essentially shadow banning.”
Shadow banning can be a problem because if people are not told they have fallen foul of the rules, it means they’re unable to appeal the decision or fix any mistake.
It can sometime lead to amusing consequences, with one Reddit user previously telling the BBC he didn’t know he’d been shadow banned – and accidentally spent a year talking to himself.
There are some benefits to the practice, however. It allows big tech companies to block harmful content from spreading, limiting disinformation.
But Dr Are believes it has had a disproportionate impact on marginalised communities.
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