How to lose your Insta account forever in 7 steps

I woke up one morning, and my Instagram was gone! 

Yeaaars and yeaaaars of doing my best, trying to understand the system, posting content, keeping up with the hashtags insanity, posting stories, even reels (fortunately you never saw me dancing there!), doing my best to share love, good vibes, some tips, and OF COURSE weird art

hours of lifetime disappearing in just one night. No message, no nothing, just and empty page 

UNFORTUNATELY THIS PAGE IS NOT AVAILABLE aaaahhhhh putain!!

Of course, my reaction was to try to recover it. I sent dozens of messages, asked my friends to do it, looked for advices online, contacts at Instagram. There is a form you can send online, Insta asked you to basically send a mugshot, with your username and a random number to prove it’s actually you? 

Eventually I got banned from using the form : yep, they accused me of spamming them, and blocked the possibility to send any message. Did they ever reply? of course not. 

SO, I am sharing this because it can happen to any of youuuu, ANYDAY AAAH! So why, how come, are you safe? NO ONE IS SAFE I AM TELLING YOU! So here are a few things that can actually happen :

6 steps and ways into losing your account : 

1 - Get shadowbanned

This one is tricky and quite mysterious. Basically, you are not appearing in the research anymore, your pictures are not listed with the hashtags where they belongs to, your account is never suggested to new people, even your audience will not see anything in their feed. Only people who look exactly for your profile can see what you post. 

This sucks hard, I had this for two years, I had barely any new followers during all this time. It’s quite hard to realize and prove your are shadowbanned, you don’t know what can be the reason of this punishement, so good luck if you have this happening to you, I am sending prayers and am lighting some candles! 

2 - Use some banned hashtags

Did you know some hashtags are just blacklisted by instagram? It could be one reason of the shadowbanning so check your hashtags! 

You would think it’s anything related to violence, porn, nazis, drugs, you know, THE HARD STUFF but beware! 

Here is my selection of my « favorite" ones representing how weird and unpredictable it is : 

#alone now you know why 

#curvygirl tutut only #fitgirl is allowed here my dear! 

#brain clever people are dangerous, we know

#elevator 

#models 

#mileycyrus 

#master 

#saltwater 

#streetphoto

#valentinesday 

#books 

#happythanksgiving is #sadthanksgiving allowed? 

#instamood wait some people were still using this?

#kansas wait is there something wrong with Kansas guys? 

#killingit 

#overnight 

#freethenipple those damned feminists wanting to free women’s body! 

#puppydogmondays so tuesday is okay?

#treasurethesemoments because no one is going to see them on instagram anyway

BONUS : you can also be using some forbidden words in the description of your posts. I know a few photographers who got banned because hey used « shooting » and even PHOTOSHOOT in the description of their work. Yep. No kidding. Such rebels.

Good news is there are a few websites that allows you to scan your account to check for banned hashtags.

3 - Political and engaged topics 

The accounts trying to educate about racism, feminism, body image, representations, colonialism, you name it, are not exactly in favor of the algorythm. It can go both ways, but When doing some research I have heard of many posts deleted and shadowbanned when covering these topics. it sucks hard, and it’s especially frustrating when we fight more openness and diversity, and love and and understanding and recognition to be silenced and invisible. 

4 - Naked people

My favorite one! This one is pretty straightforward -_- 

Woman nipples are DANGEROUS, they are considered like a strong attack and the puritan bots will do anything they can to keep us safe from such views. Note that male nudity is mostly fine, their tits obviously don't hold the same destructive power.

5 - the good old delation

This is what happened to me : the bots did not found my work offensive but some good old humans reported me. The trick is, there was actually some nipple thing happening on an artwork, so it was put down, and there is nothing I can do to get it back because I was the one not following the community guidelines -_- (this is a link to the image who was the problem)

You can lose your account if enough people are triggered by what you are doing and they start signaling your post to Instagram. Or if you pissed someone and they decide to take revenge by litteraly KILLING your online presence, and by extension your business and income stream. You know this crazy ex girlfriend/boyfriend you photographed a few years ago and she/he suddenly decides you should pay for leaving her? Scary I KNOW.

Lesson learnt, the best thing to do is to be VERY careful about what we are posting, and pray, and light some candles.

6 - Lack of luck : get hacked

Even if you are VERY careful about what you are posting, you can get hacked and someone can steal the access to your account and kick you out forever. There are ways to recover your account and some people were luckier than others, but this shit can happen anytime. Don’t click on weird links, and set up the double identification NOW! 

7 - WEIRD UNEXPECTED STUFF

I have made a few research on the subject after login my account, and there were a lot of women losing their account for showing breastfeeding pictures (if you are a new born and maternity photographer, that could apply to what you are doing), also some girls talking about periods and showing a blood spot on a bedsheet got banned.  And also mums losing their account for showing pictures of their child which instagram decided there was too much nudity and could trigger some pedophilia stuff.

I know, this is messed up.

So now, what can we do to survive online : 

Build your main content on a self hosted platform :

focus on building a strong website, blog, videos, etc, and THEN share the content on the social medias. Your website should be at the center of everything you create. I know, it’s not as easy especially when social medias push to you create the content on their own platform to keep you hooked. But when we do this we are giving them too much power, if you loose your account you lose about everything; 

Share your “sensitive” images on less conservative platforms, I see quite a lot photographers sharing more on Twitter recently.

Catch the emails! 

Create a newsletter eventually, stop procrastinating this, I know it’s annoying aaah but you can not escape it aaahhh

Please suscribe to mine, so I am never losing you ever again <3 Plus I won’t be too annoying for the moment, as I have not settled the newsletter anyway -_-

Keep a record of who you are following and who is following you in a separate file so you can contact everyone again when your account disappear. I wish I knew the 1000’s of people who were following me but I have no idea who they are. 

focus on building real connexions

People who loves you and support you will always be there, at 15000 followers or 137 <3 

what are your experiences with instagram? I am happy to hear any additional tips you have on the subject!

Have a fabulous day everyone, I am sending you plenty of love! 

PS : english is not my main language, if you want to help me read-proof some stuff, send a mail at pauline.goyard@gmail.com, thank you for your support!