But if they are shadowbanned, [...]
Not to wade into the actual Shadowbanning arena, but just to say that I bet most of those who suspected they were shadowbanned were just not doing the right things to get the right message through the right algorithm to get to the right sort of people to stoke their ego (either by agreeing with them, and effusively saying so, or disagreeing with them, and ditto but more with insults).
When your message just gets lost like an echo in a distant canyon, your own opinion that you should attract
all of the attention tends to override any good sense about these things and you invent reasons (as I said recently[1], "the problem
can't be me, it must be <some grand conspiracy theory....>"), including the misconception of a Shadowban enacted upon poor persected you.
Not that I'd prefer that everyone tries hard(er) to say the most quotable, and thus most extreme, things they can get away with to get out of the "meh... nothing to see here" doldrums and right up to the edge of a
true ban (which some might also accept as a valid result, being a much more tangible evidence that they've been Sticking It To The Man, for whatever version of Man they think they should be Sticking It to). And, though the evidence was that the mythically-singular Algorithm does of course quite like to increase the extremities of viewpoints expressed and shown (but only as an unintentional means to a different end, generally), I imagine that this has been held back a bit, so...
Yeah, I think some people are being less exposed, but 'silently', at least in their opinion - and all for the best. Doesn't seem to be holding back many other, though, so it's obviously one of these strangely inept 'omnipotent cabal' things where there is a huge all-powerful 'secret' society which is apparently controlling all the world's media but for some reason letting people freely discuss their whole mechanism of control in exquisite detail, rather than just sending round the 'heavies' to quietly disappear anyone who even tries to mention them.
(No need to reply, BTW. I'm not that *twitch* needy. And, anyway, I just need to go an answer that ominous and heavy knock at the door... Which is odd, as I've got a doorbell.)
[1] And nobody even commented about!!! Waaaahh! Unfair!!111!!! (...just kidding. Honest!)