In recent years, posts from activist organizations, educational content creators, and other cultural producers seem to be appearing less frequently on our Instagram (IG) feeds. Likewise, various users have complained that their accounts have been rendered invisible to their audiences (i.e., silenced, censored, or “shadowbanned”) by the platform and its algorithm. Indeed, even accounts of prominent verified non-profit organizations with large numbers of followers have been disabled without warning (e.g., @fash_rev on January 9, 2022), and certain activist collectives no longer appear in the app’s search results – at least temporarily.

Platforms like IG have discredited such user experiences and notoriously blamed (temporary) disappearances of accounts on “technical glitches.” By denying the existence of practices like shadowbanning, social media platforms seem to question users’ algorithmic literacy and technical knowledge (Cotter, 2020; Gebeily, 2021). However, research has shown that these incidents can no longer be excused as technological malfunctions, as they occur regularly and systematically (Cotter, 2023; Lambrecht & Tucker, 2019; Sweeney, 2013). Nor can they be blamed – as IG suggests – on users’ lack of technical understanding. Thus, scholars have called for further research on users’ perceptions and experiences of how the algorithms of social media platforms function (Cotter, 2020, 2023).