.@instagram can you please let us know why so many people randomly had their accounts disabled tonight due to "terms of service violations"? — Tara (@FabulousButEvil) May 24, 2013

UPDATE: Some users are reporting that their accounts have been restored following the deletion earlier this evening. We’re still waiting on an official response from Instagram.

UPDATE 2: Instagram has responded with the following comment.

A small percentage of users could not access their accounts for a few hours as a result of a temporary glitch. We have restored access for these users, and no pictures or data were lost.

It seems many Instagram were caught off-guard today when the free photo-sharing app suddenly deleted a significant number of accounts, citing “terms of service violations” as the reason despite many affected users having no such content on their profiles.

Some users reported that their accounts had been deleted for not posting from the built-in camera in the app, which seems like to be an unlikely reason. It seems that the deletions, while reportedly widespread, are somewhat inconsistent. My own account which has been dormant for over a year remains intact, while others who post frequently report having lost access.

Scores of tweets have been posted over the past few hours about the deletions, but Instagram has not made any official statement on the issue.

https://twitter.com/mike_bell32/status/337744050474086400 https://twitter.com/epPaulZimmer/status/337721617700515840

https://twitter.com/JayDukeBallard/status/337730666777178112

We’ve reached out to Instagram for comment and will update this post with any additional information.

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