Shadowban signals
Follow/unfollow anomaly
Mass following and unfollowing is one of the most reliably actioned behaviours on Instagram, and it is usually the work of a third-party growth tool rather than the account owner.
- Weight
- 10 / 100
- Window
- 7 days
- Verdict bands
- 0–25 · 26–59 · 60+
The exact rule
Total churn in accounts you follow exceeds 50 over seven days.
What to do about it
- Stop any tool with permission to follow on your behalf.
- Let the number settle. This signal reads a rolling seven-day window, so it clears on its own once the behaviour stops.
Also covered here: Growth stagnation, which detects the same pattern from the follower side and is weighted 15.