It's a gray day today…

Censored by Instagram.

Did you know dark, gothic, and steamy are possibly "bad words?" Yep, according to a new hashtag app I just purchased, it may be one of the reasons my Instagram account has continued to lose followers and engagement over the last several months. There is another possibility, people are tired of me. I agree with you. No way is that way possible. Ha! Before you think all banned words are sex-related, let me stop you. Some banned words are totally innocuous. Here are some of them: #boho, #brain, #costumes, #eggplant, #desk, and #elevator. Mark Z should reconsider the brain hashtag. Everyone should use that one every day, all the time. You can see the Instagram-banned words on Kickstarter. I suggest everyone take a look. It would be easy to use one of these words without even knowing. Interestingly, dark, gothic, and steamy were not on that list, but my hashtag app insists they are potential problem words and warns me to choose alternative ones.

At first, I didn't put much faith in the whole thing, but as soon as I began using only the words the hashtag app suggested were safe, I noticed one significant change over the short term, my nothing unique posts (not reels) got over a hundred likes, which signaled to me they were getting views. Of course, this could cause another problem. Instagram will now think I have bots following my posts. Ha!

I had no idea Instagram and Facebook would censor a sixty-nine-year-old woman, not after the images that seem to hit my account daily. How are these people sending out this content without getting grayed out? After conducting some research, it appears that if you use the right keywords, target the right viewers, and no one complains, it's all systems go. However, if you select the wrong keywords too often and/or someone complains, or you get too many views on a particular post, your posts suddenly disappear. That's right, if you use banned hashtags on your posts, you've violated Instagrams Community Guidelines; therefore, it deprioritizes your posts, pushes your posts to the bottom of the barrel, and your posts don't get shown, you're "shadow banned," This gives you a drop in engagement. Users who expected to find you in their feed no longer do. Boo-hoo, what can you do?

1. First go to your account, navigate to your profile, go to settings and check your account settings. Click on account status. Make sure none of your content has been removed. If it has, find out why and access IG’s community guidelines.

2. With these guidelines you can erase the post or dispute it.

3. If the account appears to be in good standing, it is most likely something to do with hashtag usage. Check your use of hashtags against the list on kickstarter and see if you used some of these banned words. If you did, take note of them and don’t use that hashtag anymore.

4. Take a few days off from Instagram. Shadowbans sometimes are caused by too much activity that gets mistaken as bots. If that doesn’t fix the problem go to step 5.

5. Report the problem to IG. Don’t mention the word, shadowban. Mention that you don’t think your posts are showing up on feeds.

Shadowbanning occurs on TikTok, too. Be careful about your hashtags and everything you say and do in your videos, and read their community guidelines carefully. Also, choose the people you allow to follow you wisely. If you aren't careful, the chances of your account becoming Shadowbanned are high. It is more difficult to reverse the condition even after disputing the complaint and having it land in your favor. Two TikTok experts told me that you'd be better off deleting your TikTok account and creating a new one if you notice Shawdowbanning still occurring after a few weeks. Please comment if you've had a different experience or successfully removed a Shadowbanning condition on either IG or TikTok.

I have an announcement for readers who don’t presently write romance but want to. RWA is hosting So You Want to Write Romance, a free virtual event for aspiring romance writers, on May 25, at 7 p.m. Central Time. It's free, given by a best-selling romance and mystery author Alana Quintana Albertson! You can register by clicking here. This event is the perfect opportunity to learn about romance fiction and get motivated by successful authors. Registration opened Friday, April 21, so if interested, I wouldn't wait too long to sign up.

Have a wonderful week, and welcome to May. May shadows be gone and the sun shine on you!