Instagram is shutting down the accounts which primarily post memes, deleting popular accounts/profiles which have millions of followers.
A Facebook spokesperson tells reporters that the accounts were disabled following many violations of platform policies.
https://twitter.com/TaylorLorenz/status/1154787892201492482
@instagram you just deleted all of my accounts for absolutely no reason, no warning, and no context behind this. (30 million+ followers worth of accounts deleted in 24 hours) #fuckinstagram #reactivateyerdank #reactivateautist pic.twitter.com/nJY6CvkQkW
— Caige Johnson (@c6ige) July 26, 2019
Dozens of accounts with over 30 million followers combined were deleted without warning. The removal is permanent, meaning there’s no hope for the users to receive their accounts restored.
Even rapper Lil Nas X has been bringing attention to the purge of Instagram meme accounts:
why is instagram purging all the meme accounts. we deserve to exist too.
— nope (@LilNasX) July 29, 2019
According to several news reports, 1 user was earning up to $30,000 annually through partnerships and using the money to pay for college.
Earlier this month, Instagram updated its accounts removal policies. It may now remove accounts that have a specific number of violations within a window of time.
Based on the timing, it is possible that the account purge is related to Instagram’s latest policy change.
In any case, this whole scenario illustrates the danger of building a business solely on social media. Those who were once thriving on Instagram are now having a rough go of it.
Organic post involvement is down, sponsored post engagement is down, and Instagram continues to expand its evaluation of concealing like counts.
Now, Instagram is quickly deleting popular accounts without giving them an opportunity to appeal the decision. And that is perfectly fine, technically speaking because Instagram can do what it wants with its own platform.
Unlike having a site, which is an owned land, people have no ownership of their social media pages. Instagram can throttle the range of pages, suspend them or delete them permanently.
It resembles cloudy times are ahead for people who rely on Instagram for a large part of their income.