#shadowban

🍦It's been three weeks, and despite many messages/emails to them, Tumblr has completely failed to communicate why our main account has been restricted/shadowbanned to everyone on the website.

We dislike being accusatory, but the reality is that we were punished on trans day of visibility as a trans woman, and Tumblr staff has done nothing to dissuade it being a charged action

Not being able to access messages means half a decades worth of helping tumblr users on plurality is barred off from us. All we want, really, is just to be able access those and help people again :(

We're unsure how to go forward. Does anyone have any advice? Links, people to talk to, anything? We don't want to stir up a storm but we're unsure how to catch staff's attention at this point - Roxas

@ask-rain-world-characters

It's a essentially a neat little hub that I've been running, where you could submit stuff to your chosen characters from the cast - and me and my pals would react while roleplaying our designated characters. Mixing up the standard 'askblog' formula, by using voice based responses, rather than images or text (which... were also part of our posts, but were not the main point, were just there for flavor and clarification, respectively), while also having it be a collaborative one where multiple people would play and write for the different characters, instead of having one person making everyone's responses.

It's been going for about 10 months now, and I've personally been having quite a blast with it! Thinking about answers to questions I otherwise would have never thought of, seeing the creative and well performed responses the other participants would come up with, and getting really taken aback by all sorts of weird and chaotic and out of pocket asks popping up in our inbox. (None of which were inappropriate, surprisingly. Y'all have done great, and have made many of my days ^^)

Sooooo, if everything's going awesome, then why am I making this post? Well, it appears as if a couple days ago, there was a glitch on Tumblr's end, leading to an inexplicable shadow ban out of nowhere. And it's unfortunately a pretty heavy one. The posts we make no longer appear, when you browse the tags. And the blog no longer appears, when you try searching for it. And the DM feature has been completely turned off. So if you happened to notice any of these things, then rest assured that this was not a thing on your end. This site is just acting up. Very badly.

I did the necessary step, and attempted to contact Tumblr Support a couple days ago (twice, once under the 'posts not showing up' category, and once under the 'social features' category). I responded to their automated emails, aaaaand... nothing. It's been about 5 days, and still no answers, and no blog restorations. At least not yet.

I was really hoping to get this resolved immediately, but since that likely isn't happening, I think it's time to adapt. So from now on, our response posts will be getting uploaded from this account (my main, @fadebolt).

'Does this mean that the blog account will be abandoned, until the shadow ban gets lifted?' - you ask? Well, no. I still want to maintain that one as the central hub for all this, so we're still gonna be uploading response posts to asks in 'the regular old way'. Except that this time, they will specifically be containing links to the posts I uploaded from this account (where the asks will still be visible, through the use of screenshots).

The goal is essentially to have as little change as possible. That no matter which way you've been viewing/searching for/accessing our posts, it'll still continue to be a viable route. And that you can still send your submissions onto the askblog, like before. (You can send them onto this account too, I suppose, though I'd prefer it if you wouldn't. But if you want to exchange any DMs in regards to the askblog, then you will have to turn to this account)

That's about it. The posts will hopefully start coming soon. Thank you for reading, and have a great day!

@saywhat-politics is one of the best political blogs on Tumblr. But they have been (I believe accidentally) shadowbanned* by Tumblr since mid-April 2024! That's 8 months!

I believe this was caused either by an error made by Tumblr's “automated anti-spam controls,” or a "glitch" in the Tumblr system.

Consequently, it is hard to search for posts by saywhat-politics on Tumblr, their "likes" don't show up in notes, and they can't message anyone.

Although Saywhat has contacted Tumblr support, nothing has changed for them.

This obnoxious shadowban is very unfair. If you like Saywhat's blog, please contact Tumblr Support and use this form to ask them to fix Saywhat's blog, so that its functions on Tumblr are no longer limited.

Thanks!

I found a tip about reporting the "shadowban" messaging problems under the "Social features" support category in a now-deleted post by another tumblr user (they seem to have happened to have cleared out their entire blog and moved to another one since I found that post ; )), who'd had their own "shadowban" finally resolved with equal rapidity after they'd done so. : ) So sincere thanks to that not-to-be-named lovely tumblrer, and to Tumblr Support's Trust & Safety / Social Features division! = D

(And I hope Tumblr can adjust their "anti-spam control" so this accidental flagging and "shadowbanning" of users won't keep happening--because it suuuuuuucks!)

My blog has finally been restored, and I wanted to share what I’ve learned over the past week or so while my account was flagged. If you’re experiencing something similar, I hope you find this information useful.  

While Tumblr states they don’t “shadowban” users, your blog can still get flagged by the anti-spam bot and restricted without actual notice, which in my opinion doesn’t make it less of a shadowban (sorry, Tumblr). When this happens, your posts lose visibility—they won’t appear on tag pages, recommendations, or the dashboard for most users. Social features are also restricted: you can’t comment, reply, send or receive asks, or use your messages or inbox. You can still interact with the posts, like and reblog, but it won’t show up in notes, and creators will only receive blank notifications. This creates the illusion that you’re using Tumblr as usual, but in reality, your blog has zero visibility and engagement—well, it’s called “shadowban” for a reason.  

In my case, I noticed a steep decline in engagement and discovered my posts were no longer appearing on tag pages. I filed a ticket under the “Tags” category, but after several days of waiting, I filed a second ticket under “Social Features” based on advice from other users. From what I’ve read, including on an unofficial Tumblr troubleshooting subreddit (yes, there is one), tickets from flagged accounts are sent to the 'Safety' team for moderation, a process that can take some time, bypassing the support team, which seems counterintuitive to me. With still no reply, I reached out to Tumblr Support directly via Twitter. While they gave the same generic response about processing times, my ticket was resolved the same day.  

A word of caution: be wary of scammers offering to “help” restore your account. I received several such replies, all of which were concealed, but it’s still something to watch out for.  

Tumblr Support eventually confirmed my blog was flagged by the anti-spam bot and restored its functionality. Although they returned my initial "Tags" ticker, ironically, my older posts remain unsearchable and off Tumblr entirely (around a year’s worth of posting). And I’m not sure this is reversible. While I understand the need to maintain a safe and healthy community, the current system causes significant, often irreversible damage to regular blogs. It needs reworking to avoid unfairly impacting users. At the very least, there should be some mild moderation to verify if a flag was justified and clear notifications when a blog is concealed. Tumblr already has a system for sensitive content that hides individual posts and notifies users to review them—why not adopt a similar approach for spam suspects? (I’ll leave that up to the Tumblr team @staff @support) 

While I’m not entirely sure what triggered the flag, among other possible causes, some users suggest it might be the use of a VPN. In my case, this makes sense. I often use it to access websites blocked in my region and sometimes forget to turn it off when switching back to Tumblr. If you use a VPN, be cautious!

You may find a lot of similar accounts on Tumblr. I highly recommend reading the “All About Shadowban” post by @that-damn-girl (it has 12k notes, and clearly suggests how relevant this issue is). I also checked the recent experiences shared by @smbhax and @elliespuns. Their blogs made me feel much less alone in this situation.

I’ll update this post if I learn more, but for now, I hope this helps.

The shadowban has been lifted. I guess I was one of the fortunate ones. Additionally, I also think the Tumblr squad was missing my thirsty posts about Joel Miller.