report released by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute indicated that terms like "gay," "lesbian," and "transgender" were restricted in several languages for global users, "no matter where in the world they live."A shadow ban is a stealth form of censorship in which a user may not be aware that they are being censored.
As the report explained:"TikTok users posting videos with these hashtags are given the impression their posts are just as searchable as posts by other users, but in fact they aren’t.
In practice, most of these hashtags are categorised in TikTok’s code in the same way that terrorist groups, illicit substances and swear words are treated on the platform.