An Update on Instagram
More of the Same
A brief summary of the events:
On January 25th around 10pm I received a notification to change my password, I don’t remember the reason it gave specifically, but something around securing my account against suspicious login activity. I dutifully did this through the application.
According to my account data, I was never hacked. But at 11:28am on January 26th, my account was then suspended for violating “Community Standards on child sexual exploitation, abuse and nudity.”
The link to “review details” in the email doesn’t go anywhere.
I immediately appealed this of course, but have heard nothing in the meantime.
Accusing me of basically being Epstein is a serious accusation. Everyone who follows me knows that’s crazy. The same thing happened to the band Trailer about 2 weeks earlier. Thankfully they received their account back after 4 days, but it seems I’m not going to be so lucky.
Yesterday I filed complaints with my state AG, California’s state AG, and sent emails to whatever Meta/Instagram email addresses I could find. My state AG said they’d forward it to the FCC, but I don’t know if that really means anything.
In reading about this I’ve discovered this has been happening to thousands of accounts worldwide, be they small personal accounts with hardly any posts, or business accounts like mine that rely on this platform for marketing/interaction with customers, fans etc etc to make a living. The cause seems to be the implementation of AI for content moderation on Meta’s platforms about 9 months ago.
No one is ever given an explanation as to what they did to trigger the AI once their accounts are reinstated either, per the various posts on a dedicated subreddit I’ve been forced to read. “Whoops, guess you aren’t grooming kids! Sorry!” There’s even a petition with 55k signatures now for Meta to roll this back.
On advice I signed up for a free trial of Meta verified on the alt that I made, to ask a human agent directly about the issue. I was basically told there’s nothing they can do, and according to the subreddit, they’re no help for anything that’s flagged for the same violation as mine, which happens to be what most people are being flagged for.
I have to point out how comically absurd even the above interaction is. I - an alleged groomer - sign up again on their platform, my identity is verified against my passport (to get Meta verified), and they just have a casual interaction with me? Like do you even take your own shit seriously?
Supposedly there are some legal avenues to try and force the issue but those quickly become expensive and I don’t really make money off this enough to justify it (I’m not asking for help). I’m just pissed I can’t market my music and I have a significant number of fans who think I became an asshole and just started blocking them (this is actually really upsetting because I truly cherish my fanbase).
In the grand scheme of things I’m actually extremely pessimistic about this. At the same time, Oracle seems to be really making a mess of the TikTok take over as well. Many people complaining about being shadowbanned (I think I am, my videos get less than half the views they did since November), or the platform being generally glitchy (can we just give it back to the Chinese, please). YouTube is difficult because the platform is a lot more impersonal, and the algorithm is not good at feeding my videos to relevant fans.
Some mutuals have mentioned starting alternative platforms, but I’m generally not optimistic about those. Most of these kind of function as little echo chambers in practice I think. I would still support them in principle. The biggest example I can think of where there was a revolutionary change in an online space in recent years was Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter. I’m not a fan of Musk or making any value judgment on that, but the platform went from being a place where the sitting president of the US was suspended (11 days before Biden’s inauguration, to be precise) to a place that’s so out of control that more liberal (former) users tried to flock to alternatives like Threads or Bluesky - both also examples of failing echo chambers btw.
These places are just the new public spaces, and unfortunately it takes something coming from the top down to really change them. Hey at least I got my underground grunge street cred now.
Anyway, I’m kinda rambling with my thoughts now I can’t interact with the vast majority of my audience. Hopefully I get it back soon. It’s been distracting me but hasn’t stopped me. I am working on the song after Numb. This one will also involve an alternative version in collaboration with a larger artist at some point this year so stay tuned.
-James
** JAN 31ST UPDATE **
I was alerted by several DMs this morning that my main account was restored. It was actually really cool to me to learn it first from these mutuals than by email. As expected, Meta didn’t explain anything. “Haha whoops, turns out you’re not really Jeffrey Epstein after all! Our bad!”
I appreciate everyone who made the effort to follow me on another platform or here, and reach out with words of support. It means the world to me.
Back to it I guess.
-James