This month marks the one year anniversary of Instagram’s change of heart regarding their content community guidelines. In short, the social media monolith shifted from PG 13 to a you-can’t-show-your-underboob type of policy, which sounds as nagging as your mum reminding you of that 10 PM curfew. Although Instagram demoted soliciting and escorting some time ago, the latest updates were lengthier (and more confusing for that matter), summoning fuzzy expressions like “sexual encounters” and “suggestive elements”. If you don’t lawfully respect whatever they are saying, you are doomed to get a shadowban.
Between suspended accounts, suspicions of their accounts getting hacked and a long-standing unwillingness for platforms to validate sex workers expect those that have reached a certain level of notoriety, the last thing that cam girls needed to deal with is surviving the great shadowban. But, to be honest with you, in the digital climate, getting shadowbanned happens as frequently as hearing someone “I am never drinking tequila again”. Even Trump got shadowbanned on Twitter. Let’s get real, Facebook implemented its censorship of “horny” emojis two years ago (and digital sexting never felt the same since) and Tumblr, the place where we first fearfully witness a deep throating GIF say goodbye forever to adult content. sex
Life under the shadowban
Social media can be as bipolar as a woman who is undergoing her worst PMS symptoms. While its content encourages you to be unapologetically sex-positive, just like Samantha Jones from SATC, its policy pops in the room, screams “Not like that” and deletes your post (if you get the short end of the stick, you might even get your account suspended). But the series of unfortunate events doesn’t stop there.
The platform’s algorithms will hide your content from your direct and extended community. In other words, your posts won’t appear that much in your followers’ news feed and you can forget about using that cocktail of hashtags that creates outrageously good reach – they won’t work either. Showing too much peach? Twerking in a provocative outfit on reels? Mentioning your hustle in the bio? Those will for sure earn you a good shadowban that’s going to govern your account and its visibility for a few weeks.
Just because some type of arcane artificial intelligence decides that your content integrates into the “high-risk” category, your account will get silenced. It might sound unfair because, well, it is. Life after a shadowban is like posting into the void – without reach, without exposure, without results. Better avoid upsetting social media from the very get-go because no matter how much you desire it, your account will never be the same after the first shadowban.
Get your online presence right
Now that we all have reached the conclusion that we all despise social media’s censorship via the shadowban and want nothing to do with it, here is your unofficial guide to avoid it at all costs. Never – and when I say never, I mean it – put your chatroom link in your bio or in any post description. Easily hide it under a linktree, not to mention that you can customise it with your favourite colours and add as many emojis or animations as you want.
Don’t get spammy. We understand that you want to expand your business or online persona in the digital realm, but that doesn’t necessarily mean posting a handful of photos in less than 24 hours. It feels like getting double (or worse, triple) texted by the same person. Annoying, irritating and not effective at all. Be organic, don’t post mindlessly as a robot would. Last but not least, don’t use any of those following hashtags – yes, they might fit your niche, but Instagram has a love-hate relationship with them that is more about hate than love.