How does shadow banning work in Call of Duty?

sportskeeda.com:

Call of Duty's shadow ban system is an integral part of the effort taken by developers to combat cheating in the franchise's titles. This, along with the RICOCHET anti-cheat, is a package that is being used to combat cheaters in the game.

However, a shadow ban is very different from a permanent ban on Call of Duty accounts. One major contrast that can be immediately noted is that a player can still play if they are shadow banned, rather than not being able to play at all in case of the other.

As such, players who are innocent of cheating in the game might sometimes not even notice that they might have been shadow banned, despite having to face the consequences. Thus, this article will shed some light on the Call of Duty system so that players can gain awareness about it.

The best way to describe this Call of Duty system is to compare it to a review period. A person usually gets shadow banned if they have been reported multiple times in a small interval by their oppenents. These reports, along with other flags, usually lead to the system placing the account under review.

However, this review is a silent process and the only indications that a player might get are a bit subtle. Usually when this happens, they are made to lobby with similar gamers who are also under review for alleged cheating.

As such, searching for a match under shadow ban will result in the system searching for lobbies with above 350ms ping, despite having a stable internet connection, and the matchmaking time being much longer than usual.

These two are the usual indicators that are noticed if a player is under the shadow ban. After a long matchmaking period, if they find themselves in lobbies filled with cheaters, then they can be sure that they are under