entry #5: the (embarrassing) story of how i got my instagram account suspended. and back

Hello!

It's been a while since I wrote. I plan to start sharing more here, but more on that in the "Instagram, social media, and power" section.

I pride myself on being intelligent. That crosses over into arrogance and ignorance at times (maybe more on that in a future update).

How my account got suspended

I am always thinking of new content. I have a few ideas for new forms of content. One of which involves working with other creators. I figured the best place to start to find these creators would be people who follow me. It is surprisingly difficult to get any information about the people who follow me. Instagram provides some basic aggregated stats like gender ratio, top locations, and age distribution. Here's what mine looked like this morning:

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In order to answer a question like "Which creators follow me, are active, and create similar content?" I would need to manually go through my follower list and look at profiles.

So, being the developer that I am, I figured I could automate this. I would get my follower list and winnow it down programatically. Since Instagram does not provide that information directly, I would need to scrape which just means extracting information from a webpage. I knew there was some risk to this. While it's legal to scrape, companies, understandably, aren't fans. I was testing using a secondary Instagram account, but I was running into an issue. I could get 50 followers, but I couldn't get the next 50. This is where I made a rookie mistake. I thought it might be because I was scraping using a separate account so... I tested it with my primary account. I was right. I ran the program manually twice, got back 100 results, and stopped. I shut my laptop and went for a run.

I was stretching when the first email came in. My scraping run has failed. "My scraping run had failed?" I thought. Panic set in as I realized what might have happened. I opened Instagram and was met with a screen that looked like this:

Panic then really set in. I ran back to my computer and opened the scraper. I hadn't turned off the automation so the scraper was running every 15 minutes. Each time it was trying to scrape my entire follower list. The scraper had made too many requests, too quickly and had triggered Instagram's automated spam detection system. Worst of all, the scraper was still using my primary Instagram account. Not so intelligent now, huh Grant?

What it took to get it back

My account was reinstated a little over 3 days later. I'll spare you the play-by-play on those three days because it was mostly:

1. Going in circles with Meta support

2. Working around Instagram's broken systems

3. Reaching out to friends for help and advice

4. Being very anxious

I honestly don't know what specifically brought it back. There are a few possibilities:

• I really did just have to wait which is what support told me

• A few of you reached out to friends at Meta / Instagram and escalated the issue (thank you!)

• I reached out to people at Meta / Instagram asking for help

If you find yourself in a similar situation here is my advice:

These systems are automated. You need to get to a real person who has the power to reinstate an account. Those people are buried deep inside of Meta and are not easy to get a hold of directly so you need to try indirectly. Here are a few things I tried and were told could be helpful:

• Sign up for Meta Verified and talk to support often. I signed up with my Facebook account since, well, my Instagram was suspended. While they don't have the power to reinstate accounts, it seems like they can put in requests and escalate issues.

• Use your personal network to get a hold of someone at Meta / Instagram

• Cold DM or email. I used LinkedIn to find people who work on the Trust and Safety team at Instagram. I don't know if that's the right team, but seemed directionally correct.

• DM Adam Mosseri, the CEO of Instagram. He supposedly reads his DMs. Reaching out and getting others to reach out might get his attention.

• Make noise on other platforms like TikTok and tag Instagram.

Two more helpful things I learned:

1. There is an internal tool that some people at Meta / Instagram have access to that can escalate an issue.

2. Talent agencies have liaisons at Meta / Instagram. If you are signed to an agency, ask them for help. If you aren't, maybe someone you know is and they can put you in touch with the right person.

In the hospital with my dad DMing people on LinkedIn to try to get my account back

Instagram, social media, and power

Power is often invisible until it is used. Getting my account suspended felt similar to losing my job. I was embarrassed and angry. I played a role in both. I did not feel like my actions justified the response in both. Yes, I was scraping. However, I was getting my own follower list. I was not extract information about other's accounts nor was I getting personal information, emails, etc.

Instagram, like any social network, has a tricky relationship with creators. This is basically how Instagram works:

• Creators create engaging content on Instagram

• The engaging content captures attention (a lot of it)

• Instagram makes a zillion dollars selling slices of that attention to advertisers

• Instagram rewards creators with attention and status (and now money for some creators)

• Creators can use that attention and status to earn income: sponsored content, merch, courses, books, patreon, any product really

Instagram needs creators broadly, but they don't need any particular creator unless that creator is someone like Kim Kardashian.

This puts most creators in a vulnerable position: getting my Instagram account suspended hurts me far, far more than it hurts Instagram and I don't even make money on my account let alone support a family or business on it. Other creators are much more vulnerable than I am.

This experience was a good reminder of my place in the content game that I am playing in. While I will continue to post on Instagram I plan to:

1. Use this email list more. I have a few ideas I'm excited about.

2. Repurpose my existing content to other short form video platforms: Snapchat, YouTube Shorts, and LinkedIn to start

3. Think about longer form content like a podcast or YouTube channel. Much more to figure out here so this will be slower.

As always, thank you for reading. Stay tuned for more and thank you again for all the recent support with my dad. 🙏🏻

- Grant