With seemingly clear rules of play, social media platforms (SMPs) offer a vast platform for many to freely share their ideas and opinions. However, some users report experiences in which their ability to engage online has been restricted or revoked. Increasingly, SMP users claim that SMPs remove or reduce certain content and/or accounts without notification and/or explanation, an action colloquially known as shadowbanning. While the reasons behind banning or reducing certain content are apparent, such as hate speech comments, other covert decisions are more ambiguous. This mixed methods study analyzes first-hand and second-hand user experiences with shadowbanning, how their perceptions of this phenomenon, and its’ associated risks, impact their experiences on SMPs and how they impact their behaviour online. Through a web-based survey, individuals were asked to provide a brief description of their experience with shadowbanning which were then explored in further detail with a subset of survey respondents in follow-up interviews. Analyzing this issue through a social constructionist perspective and sociocultural theory of risk, this study reveals how complex the issue of shadowbanning is from its’ basic, subjective definitions to how users perceive its’ impacts, and the associated risks. As such the first goal of this study was to bring clarity to the definitional challenge of the phenomenon, the second was to analyze user risk perception and response. The complexity of this phenomenon has elicited considerable confusion and has led to the proliferation of a shadowbanning ecosystem of opacity. However, while users have been vocal about their concerns, they are not being heard. Up until recent admissions that major platforms like Twitter do engage in this type of content moderation, SMPs have largely committed to responding to claims of unjust, opaque banning using tactics of denial and gaslighting. By employing a user-centered approach, this research speaks to wider lifestyle, social, economic, and activism barriers and risks that users regularly encounter; it highlights how users respond to perceived risks and ultimately, what impact this has on public discourse. This work also emphasizes the need for better transparency and communication on the part of those SMPs.