Have you ever gotten your Instagram account suspended?

How frustrating would it be, to have it completed removed for a day, or two, and be told that there is a possibility it will be permanently disabled.

Well, this was me.

I thought I’ll put this piece together, so you get an idea of what happens, what you could do, why I thought my account was disabled and how long it look for me to have it recovered.

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How do you find out that your Instagram is suspended?

I received a message early morning that my Instagram had been suspended, as of 25th November 2022. Literally opened my Instagram and saw a page informing me so, because I didn’t follow Instagram’s Community Guidelines.

I read through their ‘Community Guidelines‘, and I have never violated any of the guidelines in there, so this was very very odd.

Now, when they suspend your account – it’s not that you cannot loginto your account. Your account literally does NOT exist. Every post, every reel – does not exist.

Is there anything you can do about it?

On that same page, it gave me a prompt to click if I disagreed with this decision, which of course I clicked on. It then brought me to a page where I had to verify that I was not a robot. The usual click traffic lights, or wassit bus, one of the other.

Upon completion, I was sent an OTP number to my registered number, which I received. I inserted that, and then received another 6-digit number.

What happens next?

The next page made me think that crap, did I get hacked – was this a scam?

It was titled ‘Upload a verification selfie’ – with a series of steps to be completed to verify my identity – including a selfie holding a paper with my name, and that 6-digit number. Later on I found this page that did mention the same verification selfie option – which made me feel a little bit more reassured that it was a standard procedure.

12 hours later

12 hours later – my account was still not restored – I was getting proper worried. Initially I thought it may had been a glitch, but maybe they were for real?

It’s not the end of the world but man, I have spent a lot of time creating content on that account, that is linked to this blog.

Where I went for help : Twitter, Google & Instagram Help

I went on Twitter to see if I could message Instagram’s account from there – only to find my message bombarded by bots and spam accounts suggesting lots of ways to resolve the problem.

Ignore them if you end up like me. I couldn’t even bothered to follow through to see ‘what happens’. Possibly need to give my bank account number, transfer some money, etc etc.. the possibilities are endless.

@instagram account got suspended for unknown reasons and I had to reverify myself. See snapshot below, can you confirm that this standard protocol? pic.twitter.com/sZxiqxDP9U

— Cindy (@lil1oftheashes) November 25, 2022

Went onto Google and landed on Instagram’s Help Centre which does have an article on ‘Disabled Instagram Account‘. It basically outlined what I went through.

I did try to call the Instagram hotline but don’t bother – it’s just an automated response to advice you to go to their Help Centre online and read up what you need to do.

The waiting game

For the next 2 days, I basically checked my account every so often to find that same page above. There is basically nothing you can do then but wait.

48 hours later

Woke up on the 27th of November to find that I can log into my account again. Happy days – what a relief.

I also received an email from META, apologizing for the inconvenience, lol.

Possibility of why my account was disabled – use on Multiple devices

It was not mentioned in the Instagram Community Guidelines but in another article here that one of the reasons your account would be disabled is if you try to loginto your account through Multiple Devices.

It is mentioned there that Instagram may think you are being hacked, hence your account is blocked without warning.

I access my account on my phone, and occasionally I have it on my laptop – as I link a lot of content from Instagram to this blog. So it’s a quick way of accessing it and copying links, etc. Sometimes, when I loginto via my laptop, it automatically logs me out of my phone – and vice versa. Sometimes, I can access it simultaneously (or so I thought). I also recently installed an app on my phone to check Insta stats – which sometimes also logs me out of my account and vice versa.

All this multiple logins must have prompted Instagram to think someone is hacking into my account. Or that I’m a bot.

Damn.

Lesson learnt.

I need to find out though – I am sure there is a way to access my account on the browser, as well as on the phone? Anyone?

Hope this has been helpful for anyone who went through the same thing. I hope you don’t go through it though. First world problems, ay?