Hey r/learnTikTok — full-time creator on a gaming quiz format, posting 2 videos/day since February. Need diagnostic help on a soft shadow ban that started April 22 and won't lift.
CHANNEL CONTEXT
- @LePixelDansLoeil (FR) — gaming quiz channel, guess-the-game format from pixelated images
- 2 videos/day since February 2026, scheduled via Metricool at fixed times (17:14 and 19:14)
- I run a parallel English channel @ThePixelTest from the same device,
same content format, which performs normally — same views as before, no issue
WHAT HAPPENED
April 22: views dropped from ~600/video to literally 0 overnight on the FR account.
The English account was unaffected.
That same day I made a chain of bad calls on the FR account:
- Posted a video about RimWorld with hook "A beer as a weapon?"
(might have triggered a content filter on "weapon"?)
- Added a pinned MVP comment crediting the top guesser of the previous week
- TikTok auto-hid my pinned comments without explanation
- I deleted and re-created them multiple times trying to fix it
DIAGNOSIS DONE
- Account searchable by @ in search bar from logged-out device: YES
- Videos appearing in their own hashtags from logged-out device: NO
- Creator Center account status: "All good, no violations"
- Support ticket opened: closed automatically with no response
WHAT I'VE TRIED
- Dropped from 2 videos/day to 1 video/day for a week
- Stopped using Metricool this week, posting natively from the app
- No improvement after ~2 weeks
QUESTIONS
The hashtag invisibility while staying searchable — is this the classic
soft shadow ban that lifts on its own, or something else?
Could the Metricool scheduling at fixed times have been flagged as bot behavior,
especially combined with two accounts on the same device?
Should I be worried that switching from Metricool to native posting now
actually looks MORE suspicious to the algorithm (sudden behavior change)?
Anyone else recovered from this kind of soft ban? What worked?
Thanks for any input. The English account doing fine while the French one died
overnight is what's killing me — same content, same device, only difference is
the language and the MVP system.