The Washington PostThe Washington Post

Shadowbanning is real: Here’s how you end up muted by social media

By Geoffrey A. Fowler

27 Dec 2022 · 9 min read

Editor's Note

The Washington Post looks into how shadowbanning, the act of limiting you post's reach on social media, is unfair to creators and how are platforms such as Twitter, Instagram addressing it.

Art teacher Jennifer Bloomer has used Instagram to share activism-themed artwork and announce classes for eight years. Then last fall, while trying to promote a class called "Raising anti-racist kids through art," her online megaphone stopped working.

It's not that her account got suspended. Rather, she started to notice her likes dwindled and the number of people seeing her posts dropped by as much as 90 percent, according to her Instagram dashboard.

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