Instagram Account Suspended
This is partly an announcement for anyone currently looking for my Instagram and unable to find it, and partly a reminder not to rely too heavily on a single social media platform.
My Instagram account has been suspended. No reason has been given, but I believe it’s just because I tripped some basic security flag and they’re checking my account hasn’t been hijacked. The only proof they demanded was an incredibly basic photo verification, and my Account Status is showing as unaffected, so I don’t believe it’s an intentional suspension.
If I had to guess, it’s because I tagged quite a few accounts in my stories the day before (some of which I only just started following). It makes sense that this might seem like the account had been compromised and was being used to scam others. Fair enough.
I’m waiting for a human to verify my account and reactivate it.
The real issue here is that it’s down to the whim of that human. There’s a massive asymmetry in the seriousness of this, where it represents years of work on my part and will likely be decided by an underpaid and overworked person with only a few seconds to make that call. They don’t care about me or my account, and they won’t lose sleep if they make the wrong decision and I’m back to zero followers.
I try not to rely too much on any single platform, but there’s no question that Instagram is the one I put the most effort into. I’ll be using this as a reminder to keep building my mailing list (the most important followers) and I’ll spread the effort I do put into social media content more equally. I keep saying I’ll focus more on YouTube but this might be the kick I needed to actually do that!
Edit: Two days later, my account has been reactivated.
I wrote a bit more about it here, but essentially my conclusion from the whole experience is:
I’m not complaining about Meta/Instagram, as tempting as that is.
They haven’t told me anything but I think I can guess why it happened. I probably tripped an automated spam filter by tagging dozens of accounts in my stories. They have a serious issue on here with accounts being hijacked and scammers using them to rip innocent people off. A system to address that and protect other users is a good thing.
The account was suspended on Saturday morning and reactivated on Monday morning, which is a reasonable timeframe for a human moderator to respond.
I expected to be reactivated. My Account Status showed no breaches of community guidelines, and I hadn’t done anything I thought would be an actual issue.
But there are definitely a few things this has reinforced in my mind:
We are at the whim of the platforms - At any point Meta can decide to deactivate an account. They don’t need to justify it, or listen to a counterargument.
We own none of our followers - As soon as the account was suspended, there was no way to tell you that it had happened. I have no access to my followers without this account.
A mix of social media platforms is safer - Having several smaller sized accounts on different platforms is much better than a single bigger account.
A mailing list is essential - It’s the only way to send out an update to people without needing a social media platform, and it’s something you own.
I don’t expect to permanently lose access to any of my social media accounts. Still, it feel a little more possible than it did a few days ago. Having a (relatively) large account doesn’t protect you from this, but I imagine that they are quicker to suspend and slower to restore smaller accounts.
I won’t be making any big changes as a result of this experience, but I definitely will be prioritising my mailing list more and focusing more of my attention on other social media platforms (particularly YouTube) rather than relying so heavily on Instagram.
If you sell your work but don’t have a mailing list, I’d recommend starting one. Hopefully you’ll never need it in a situation like this but it’s worth having regardless!
