shadow ban

Shadow banning is when a social network secretly hides your posts from other users without telling you. Your kid still sees their own posts but no one else does. Not concerning unless it affects them emotionally; it is genuinely frustrating, especially for teens who post a lot. Worth understanding so you can support them. If your kid uses it constantly, ask them where they first heard it, not to police their speech but to understand which online community they are in.

Shadow ban (verb: to shadow-ban) is a tech term meaning a platform restricts a user's visibility without notifying them. Use in social-media journalism and platform-policy writing. Formal equivalent: "undisclosed visibility restriction." Common non-native mistake: writing it as "shadowban" (one word) in formal contexts, where the hyphenated or two-word form is preferred. Treat it as both a noun and a transitive verb. Read or listen to the word in context several times before trying it yourself; the right register is harder to learn than the dictionary meaning.