I believe this is a shadow ban(?)
Don't know what caused it tho
Shadowbanning doesn't exist.
A story that doesn't show on searches has either been rejected or hasn't been approved yet. That's it. Those are the only two things that can happen to a story that stop it from appearing on searches/homepage.
the problem = it's not showing in search results or latest updates
I wanna know whether the fact that it publicly appears on my profile means a bug has occured
A story appearing on your profile before being approved is normal.
If it's been 24h since you released your story and it has yet to be approved, send an e-mail to the e-mail linked on the "Contact Us" portion of the homepage. Tony can explain to you why your story was rejected, or approve it in case he somehow missed it.