TikTok emerged in popularity over the past few years. It is safe to assume that everyone is familiar with TikTok by now. With over a billion monthly active users, TikTok is one of the most popular apps that allow you to create and share videos with people around the world. This attracts people of different age groups.
Only last year, TikTok got rid of 7 million accounts due to being suspicious of belonging to underaged users. Did you also lose your account due to a similar reason? Or perhaps you got banned for a different reason? In this article, we will take a look at why you are permanently banned from TikTok and how you can get unbanned from the platform.
TikTok: What Is It Meant For?
TikTok is an app used to create, edit, share, and discover short videos. It is completely free to download and used by over a billion people every month. What makes TikTok so appealing is its ease of use and how simple it is for a creator to record, edit, and post videos on it.
One of the best things about TikTok is that it offers the potential for fame. Millions of people make TikToks in that pursuit. This dream, however, is crushed at the sight of a notification letting you know that you have been banned from the platform. Let’s take a look at what kind of restriction you may have received and how you can get your account back if you are banned from TikTok.
Also Read: Oracle-TikTok Deal
Why Am I Banned On TikTok?
If you are banned on TikTok, you probably violated its guidelines multiple times. The way TikTok moderates the platform is by identifying and flagging violating content. The content is then reviewed by the Safety team or simply removed. If you are someone who has violated TikTok’s guidelines multiple times, you must have been notified about it within the app. Violating TikTok’s guidelines multiple times can get you banned or restricted from certain functionalities. Here are things that you cannot do on TikTok:
- Uploading and sharing violent or graphic content,
- Uploading and sharing sexually explicit content,
- Uploading and sharing self-harm-encouraging content,
- Uploading and sharing content promoting illegal activities,
- Spamming and spreading misinformation,
- Blackmailing or threatening other users.
We have seen many countries such as India, Pakistan, Russia, and Indonesia ban TikTok in the past. You might reside in one of these countries which is why you are not able to use TikTok regularly.
Types of TikTok Restrictions
According to TikTok, their violation system punishes accounts based on the number of times they violate the app’s terms of use. Like many other platforms, violations of an app’s ToS can lead to account restrictions such as temporary bans, imposing disability of certain functions such as messaging and commenting, a temporary ban or a suspension, or a permanent ban. Let’s take a look at what type of account restriction TikTok can impose on you.
First Violation
When you first violate Tiktok’s guidelines, you are warned through a notification within the app. This warning lets you know that if you violate more community guidelines, your account can face restrictions and potentially a ban. Furthermore, if your violation is severe enough, you may be automatically banned and prevented from creating additional accounts on TikTok.
Temporary Ban
A temporary ban refers to an account restriction. This means your account will be limited to only being able to do things such as view TikToks and like them. Violating TikTok’s guidelines can result in having your ability to comment, send direct messages, upload or share videos, go live, or edit your profile. The time duration for this is usually one or two days but in certain cases, you may be locked out from your favorite TikTok functionalities for up to a week. During the longer ban, you may only be able to view content without being able to engage with it.
Permanent Ban
A permanent ban means no more TikTok. After violating TikTok’s community guidelines several times, you are warned before your account gets permanently banned. This is the final warning. If you choose to ignore it, your account is likely to get permanently banned and you will be stopped from creating any other accounts.
Wrongful Bans
While TikTok rightfully bans a ton of accounts for going against their terms of service, the system used for automatic flagging and removal of posts makes errors as well. We have observed many reports of wrong bans from TikTok upon false reports. We have also seen people get banned due to their content being wrongfully flagged.
How to Get Unbanned On TikTok?
While the chances are low, you can get unbanned from TikTok by submitting an unban request to the customer support. It may not work for you if you are rightfully banned but it’s worth a shot.
Depending on why you got banned, you can submit a request for unban to TikTok’s customer support. If you feel like getting unbanned is impossible, you can still use TikTok using a VPN. Let’s learn how you can get unbanned on TikTok:
Contact Customer Support
The first thing to do if you are banned is to contact TikTok Customer Support. They are sure to help you regarding your urban request if it is wrongfully imposed. Maybe they might even accept an unban request for a serious permanent ban. They usually take 24 to 72 hours to respond. However, users have reported that sometimes they have had requests stuck for as long as months whereas on other occasions it has taken them as short as a few hours to respond. To contact TikTok customer support from your app, follow these simple steps:
- Firstly, open the app and go to Profile.
- Secondly, head over to Privacy and Settings from the button at the top right.
- Next, under Support and About, tap Report a problem.
- Lastly, you want to find and go to Account recovery.
From there, traverse through the options and state your issue. Customer support will respond to you as soon as they can.
Submit an Appeal
Let’s say you contacted TikTok customer support, stated your issue, added all the necessary details to explain the context, and you received no response from them in return. What to do next? The next step is for you to email TikTok and submit an appeal to have your ban lifted. To submit a better appeal, make sure to include detail and provide as much information as you can. You can tell them why you think you got wrongfully banned and justify how you did not go against the community guidelines. The following are some of TikTok’s email addresses you can submit an appeal to:
Prove Your Age
One of the reasons why your TikTok account might have been permanently banned was due to age restrictions. This is a common ban for a lot of accounts because TikTok states that you need to be at least 13 years old for you to use the app and 16 years old to go LIVE. If you were wrongfully banned because of this, you can prove your age to TikTok by providing your ID.
You may do this by submitting an appeal. Updating your date of birth on TikTok, however, can heading by submitting a report from settings. You can then either update your birthday from the I would like to request to update my date of the birth option.
Use VPN
As you may have heard, TikTok has been banned in several countries. You may not be able to use TikTok as long as you reside in one of them. If you want to use TikTok in one of these countries, you will have to fake your location using a VPN and use the app that way.
A (Virtual Private Network) not only establishes a secure connection to the internet but also hides your IP address and changes your location to encrypt your data. You can take advantage of this and use TikTok in a country where it is banned.
Conclusion
TikTok is an incredible app, and getting banned from it can be infuriating. People use it so much that it has become a part of many people’s routines. Did you get wrongfully banned, or do you think it was deserved? Either way, there’s a possibility for you to get unbanned and start using your favorite app again. If you can’t get unbanned, there are still ways you can continue using TikTok.
One of those ways is by using TikTok on a new phone. Did you recently get banned from TikTok? What do you think of TikTok as an app? Do you enjoy using it? Let us know in the description by leaving a comment and reacting with one of the emojis to tell us how we’re doing!