I recently took a week off to work on my side business Della Katessen. Della is a character that I created. She is an Event Host, Emcee, and all-round grouse woman. We are coming up to peak event hosting time and it seemed like a good investment to work on her brand at the same time as treating myself to massages, visits to the Peninsula Hot Springs and seeing loved ones. Sounds wonderful right? Well...

On November 3rd, 2019 (day 2 of my week off) I had a notification come through on my Apple Watch that someone had sent me a Direct Message (DM) on my Instagram account. I opened up the app and it said 'You have been logged out please login again'. I had my arms full of groceries after doing a quick trip to Coles (you know, to buy all those 'treat yourself items' like cheese, wine, and crackers) so I ignored it for the time being. Fast forward about an hour later, where I tried it all again and nothing would work.

The process went like this (and it's still the same to this day):

I enter my username and password, then I am taken to a 2-factor screen where I enter the 2-factor code. Error - Please check the code and try again. Trying this several times does not work. I try to click on 'Send text message' Error - you are not connected to the internet. How did I get here in the first instance? Carrier pigeon? I try to fill out their 'request support' form. Error - invalid parameters (ironically this error is hidden by the 'notch' on the iPhone so all I see is a red banner, I had to screenshot the screen to see what the error was) I also try the Recovery Code option. Error - please contact Instagram for support. But how? I look at their help article and it's useless, you can not request support from this point.

So at first, I just thought it was a bug. Instagram has gone down a lot lately, so I slept on it and thought I would try it again in the morning.

The next morning, after a breakfast of leftover room temperature sav blanc and stale crackers, I tried to log in again. The same things were happening. I was stuck in a loop. Nothing was working.

I sent @instagram a few tweets about how shit they are, as you do. Whilst on Twitter, I also thought to check out who was currently tweeting @ them and what they were saying. Sure enough, hundreds of tweets with people having the same issue as me. What is going on? Have they been hacked? Nothing in their 'known issues' part of their Help Centre suggests this, so I keep digging. I check Reddit, Google and anywhere else I could run a search and found a heap more people with the same issue as me.

It seems that Instagram have some kind of automation or bot. It goes through their billions of accounts and just deletes them if it thinks they might be suspicious. You might remember that Facebook did this a while ago and it caused outrage. They were particularly aggressive towards drag performers and they deemed them to be 'impersonation' accounts, which is one of their rules. Once it got some media coverage, they did a quick about-face, threw a few rainbow flags around their office and suddenly it's all meant to be peace, love, and rainbows.

Facebook now owns Instagram and it's becoming apparent that this platform is going down the drain too. Help us all.

In my personal account, I could search Della's Instagram, it would show the account, but the pictures were gone, slowly, over the next 48 hours different elements of her profile were vanishing. It was like watching a slow death.

For me, Della's Instagram account IS her brand. It IS her business and it's been devastating. It took me over 18 months to build her brand on this platform and I have lost it all overnight, with no warning at all. I know for a fact (as they state in their 'terms of service') that if you are breaching any rules, you receive warnings. I STILL have not received a single one.

Don't sell your Instagram for Business platform as a way to engage and build your brand if you are going to use some really shitty bot to clear out active accounts and not provide them a proper appeals process.

Instagram, you have removed my access to my media, photos & videos that are incredibly valuable to me. You have removed my ability to connect with my followers, an albeit small but loyal base of people who are incredibly vested in my growth and success that took me a significant time to build. Most disturbingly, you have also removed my access to all of my Direct Messages, containing information about upcoming bookings and negotiations that were in progress. Some of these people have assumed that I have ceased business, which is bullshit.

I now have no option but to start again from scratch. New username, new content and a clean slate. I know what work is ahead of me to get back to where I was and I am already exhausted. I also don't have trust or faith that this won't happen to the new account at any time without warning.

I found a couple of articles where they had mentioned filling out a form, where you could appeal your account deactivation. I followed these links and furiously filled out the forms but nothing happened.

I found the following forms through searches and Reddit posts.

These forms seem to be a tiny bit of hit and a lot of miss. When I fill them out (which I have now done literally hundreds of times), I get an automated reply to roughly every 20th form I fill out. The automated replies either ask for proof of who I am by taking a selfie holding a piece of paper with a number on it (a number they randomly generate and put into the email) or I get asked for proof of my business. They want me to reply with tax forms, utility bills or proof of business name registration. EVERY time I get one of these emails, I reply immediately. Nothing happens. I assume there is a human that has to check these, so I am happy to wait, but weeks? Most people on the Reddit forums say they have had their accounts restored withing a 'few hours'. Not this sheila.

To date, I have done the following:

All of the troubleshooting steps above, which resulted in all of the errors that I had mentioned

Tried to reset the password using username - it says that user does not exist

Tried to reset the password using email - it says that email does not exist

Create a new account and use my old username - says that username is already taken

Filled out the above-mentioned forms, sending about 20-30 a day

Upgraded my LinkedIn account so I could message people who work at Instagram, I sent 5 'InMails' to their CEO, Head of Product and some people in the APAC market.

Tried to contact a couple of media outlets, but they don't seem interested

Posted my own post in Reddit and nothing really new there, same links and stories that I have seen hundreds of times already

Sent DM's to the founders of Instagram, nothing

I even tried to raise tickets using the Facebook Help Centre. I would raise a ticket for any topic I could and ask them for help with this issue. A couple of responses said that they would forward to the right team, but still nothing

I even went to request a refund on my Instagram advertising. Yes, I had paid to get exposure of Della on Instagram which helped a lot. What a waste of money. Honestly, it's insane that they are happy to take my money and then shut down my account. They denied my request for a refund even given these circumstances.

Reached out to colleagues at work, seeing is anyone knew someone who worked at Facebook or Instagram. One colleagues sister works there and she even filed an internal case for me, but still, nothing has happened

So where to now? Well, I will keep filling out the forms, I will keep asking people for help and I will keep making noise until something happens.

You can help by sharing this article with your connections on LinkedIn and maybe someone will be able to do something.

You can follow Della's new Instagram account here.

So what are your thoughts? What do you think I should do next? How can a company like Instagram, who promote their business services NOT have any customer service?

Thanks for taking the time to read this. Don't forget to share this article with anyone and everyone you know. The more noise we make, the better. Your support means the world to both of us.

Aza & Della xo