Instagram recently deleted dozens of accounts, some with up to 13 million followers, in a mass purge that focused on meme accounts. The company did not give any explanation for the suspensions beyond "violations of terms of service," but there are several theories as to why the accounts were removed.
The purge angered the account owners, many of whom generated up to $200,000 a year using their accounts. One user noted that he used the accounts to fund his college education and has now been left without a source of income. Instagram did not provide any of the users with specific reasons for the suspensions, though there are a few posited theories:
- The users were offering promotion for other users at rates below what Instagram charges, and Instagram did not want the competition.
- The users were profiting by monetizing reposted content without obtaining permission from the original creators, although at least one account was allegedly only posting original content.
- The users were posting inappropriate material that violated community guidelines.
- The users were using inside connections and paying Instagram employees for favors involving their accounts, such as offering services for getting accounts verified.
Instagram has noted that there is no way for the accounts to be recovered and the decisions are final, so we'll likely never know the actual reasons for the deletions.
Lead image by Pixabay.
Wait, you need "stats" to show that creating engaging content is more difficult than simply usurping already existing content?
Some things are so obvious that proof of stats would be considered absurd by most reasonable people.Most people don't have stats that prove an orange is not an apple, but reasonable people can deduce it with simple logic.
Daniel, people used to believe that the earth-centric model was obvious and self-explanatory and did not require testing. It is obvious that among many hundreds of million users there are only a handful of accounts with the significant multimillion following which was eradicated - which doe not support your claim. If it is so easy to build a successful following why not more?
Tell me. What am I claiming?
Dan, If you believe that usurping others work to build a large following is much easier then building upon authentic content why then only 12 such accounts were banned, should it be more?
"Dan, If you believe that usurping others work to build a large following is much easier then building upon authentic content why then only 12 such accounts were banned, should it be more?"
I don't think they have to be connected. I don't know why they only chose the 12 they did. But it still doesn't negate the fact that creating content is much more difficult than "borrowing" it.
https://www.cnet.com/news/what-steve-jobs-really-meant-when-he-said-good...
Let's assume it is much easier to build upon borrowing, I do not see much evidence to support that either, that is why I ask to give some examples... It is possible to borrow stuff in a perfectly legal way by using Unsplash. Unsplash is a great resource with tons of content, but I am not aware of many multimillion accounts employing that ... Thus my common sense contradicts the apparent easiness of building a successful following by using borrowed stuff...
For me, it is easier to do what I love - to create stuff myself even it is apparently harder to do and more time-consuming.
Quit defending the content thieves!
Dear Eric. I am not defending content thieves. I am puzzled of how did you come to such a conclusion. My point is that Instagram didn't go far enough, there is plenty of small content thievery left. Have you heard about "broken window" theory"? Besides I was curious about any knowledge of any particular offenders which were erased.
While I agree that Instagram did not go far enough, I also hope they continue the process, deleting accounts that just repost other peoples content. They need to cull the entire platform and go back to only allowing people to post their own, original work.
But this at a minimum does more than most people are taking into account. By purging the biggest accounts, all the smaller accounts are put on notice, that all their... ahem... "hard work" creating their account, is easily lost overnight with no warning.
Instagram as a platform, if they wish to stay relevant, needs to make everyone only post original work that they own the copyright for.
Alexander, I also agree everyone gaming the IG system should be dealt with equally. I think though that news of big accounts being shut down will far outweigh news of small accounts being shut down. In fact, I’d bet that at least 1000x more small accounts partaking in these practices have been shut down. We just don’t hear about them because it makes more sense to report on the larger fish than it does the smaller.
Also, I can 100% guarantee that IG isn’t done culling their system for frauds. I don’t know how hard it is to spot a fake. But when my work is reposted without credit/compensation I handle it first by asking the abuser for compensation, and then escalate to turning the matter over to IG to handle with their spam report method.
All this said, I have no researched numbers to confirm my above stated assumptions. I’m using common sense.
Steven lets hope that you are right. And theory #1 is out of place.
Have you heard of Tipping Point?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tipping_Point
The thing is, later studies showed that many more factors were involved than just the Broken Window factor. Mostly it came down to broader economic opportunities, the national economy moving upwards, among others. It also had the unintended (I like to hope it was) of mass incarceration of the minority populations when you had minor offenses push into felony territory, couple with so-called Three Strikes laws. I am a fan of Tipping Point, but that chapter either needs updating or redacting in future editions.
Works for me.
The users were profiting by monetizing reposted content without obtaining permission from the original creators, although at least one account was allegedly only posting original content.
THIS, and only THIS. The one account that allegedly only posting original content, was posting content it originally stole.
"One user noted that he used the accounts to fund his college education and has now been left without a source of income."
Yea, this is called being fired. This is the problem when you rely on other peoples services (instagram, facebook, whatever) to make your money. Don't be bitching when you hitch your wagon onto someone else's horses and then all of a sudden they kick you out.
The amount of entitlement these days is ridiculous.
Can't the same be said of anyone working for a single employer?
i think the reason for them being banned is because or a certain picture they posted, it was a mix of gay prida, nazi, alabama and the jewish star, some accounts show that meme as being reported and they may be deleted, the meme is titled, lets offend everyone, and instagram have probably seen it and banned them straight away
I'm left wondering why people follow meme accounts, I'm a photographer so it doesn't make sense to me. With that said, I follow Bodega Cats of Instagram, which is an endless stream of cat pictures. Cats are essentially fuzzy memes. How do meme accounts make money? Is IG really deleting these accounts because they're not getting a piece of pie?
And I have been fighting for months to remove two fake accounts that use my photos and pretend to me !!!
Without answers from instagram! Incredible !!!