What is Shadowban?
Also called: Reach restriction, Distribution limit
Short answer
An informal term for reduced distribution: an account’s content stops being recommended to people who do not already follow it, without any notification.
Platforms rarely use the word. What exists under the hood is a set of eligibility flags — whether an account can be recommended, appear in search, be surfaced in Explore or Reels, or run ads.
Those flags are usually set by a policy strike, a borderline-content classification, or activity that looks automated.
Why it matters
The guessing is what costs people months. The flags themselves are readable, which is what an account diagnostic actually reports.