Instagram seems to have done a mass banning of electronics accounts - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / beginners

author: sahko123
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 12, 2021, 03:31:36 pm
content: My business has...had an instagram account revolving around showing my design process and updates on progress etc.. and this morning i received a message when loggin in that my account had been disabled asked me to do a captcha give my phone number, confirm said number with a code (all done). And havent heard anything back i asked around in a discord im in for a youtuber called strangeparts and another person (someone from Australia meanwhile I am in Ireland) had a similar account (based around the repair of equipment) banned earlier today.Has anyone else been part of this issue?They said that the account was banned due to the account being reported as a "scam company" and that instagrams decision was "Final".Also our accounts were not linked or associated in any way shape or form and neither were we as people. I assume this happened to others and want to find out more about what happened. My current theory is bots targeting electronics and repair based instagram businesses.

author: golden_labels
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 12, 2021, 05:32:21 pm
content: Considering that a singleworkerlike you generates marginal profit, there is no incentive for Facebook to investigate if you are or aren’t a “scam company”. If that is in fact a large incident, possibly including some major accounts, taking action as a group is the easiest option to exert pressure. As a group you have an argument related to both financial and company image aspect of the situation.

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 12, 2021, 09:50:45 pm
content: Quote from: sahko123 on April 12, 2021, 03:31:36 pmWell, welcome to the 21 century, where a tech company's is the judge, a bunch of teenagers with the attention span of 2 seconds and a dislike button is the jury, and the loss of income is the executioner.

author: wizard69
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 13, 2021, 01:32:57 am
content: You really have to question the wisdom of even dealing with these mega corporations. Not a one of the employees at these places have any idea what it is like to run a one man company.As for Instagram you could always try finding a lawyer that can take on the cause for a cut of the action. Problem is even if you won, the damages wouldn't be enough to even pay the lawyers boat payments.

author: cdev
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 13, 2021, 01:39:34 am
content: Its totally impossible to ever speak to a real person at any of these companies. Its like they are not composed of humans. I find it ironic that they are always accusing others of being bots.

author: magic
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 13, 2021, 05:48:45 am
content: They are composed of software engineers.(I am an SE myself so I know what I'm talking about.)

author: golden_labels
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 14, 2021, 03:28:23 am
content: Quote from: tszaboo on April 12, 2021, 09:50:45 pmDeciding what someone(or a person or system to which this responsibility was delegated) does in their own company is an 21th century invention? The sound of me scratching my head intensifies…Quote from: wizard69 on April 13, 2021, 01:32:57 amAnd what would be the legal basis for paying damages? Was there any breach of agreement? Facebook withdrawn from it and I do not recall any provisions that would prevent either party from doing so or having any financial obligations towards the other side. Correct me if there are any.

author: Bud
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 14, 2021, 03:35:37 am
content: People, people, people...Do not base your living income on (anti)social media. Get a real job. Better yet, do not use them at all. You will soon feel much better. You will feel free. Not depending on some stupid cyber mob.

author: sahko123
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 15, 2021, 01:05:17 am
content: my business didnt depend on instagram anyway just was a major source of traffic and community engagement

author: wizard69
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 15, 2021, 01:21:32 am
content: This is why such banning can be so damaging to a business. A business might not "depend" upon social media but it can certainly have an impact on traffic.Quote from: sahko123 on April 15, 2021, 01:05:17 am

author: magic
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 15, 2021, 06:29:08 am
content: Quote from: Bud on April 14, 2021, 03:35:37 amPosted at eevblog.com

author: golden_labels
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 15, 2021, 11:21:11 pm
content: Quote from: wizard69 on April 15, 2021, 01:21:32 amDid Facebook made any promises regarding how long will they allow OP to use the service? Any obligations in case they stop offering it?While it’s sad sahko123 lost the opportunity to share their content on that platform and I would be happy to hear they found a solution, jumping on Facebook seems to me unfounded. It’s totally up to Facebook to decide how to shape content. Of course you are free to disagree, but first you should consider consequences a different opinion has in other contexts.Quote from: sahko123 on April 15, 2021, 01:05:17 amEarlier, while editing my post, I accidently deleted a fragment. Aside from other creators, consider involving followers.

author: wizard69
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 15, 2021, 11:38:13 pm
content: Simple question: Should the phone company be allowed to determine whom you can talk to and even if you can use the service in a normal way? This is the fundamental problem with communications concentrated into too few companies. It is even more of a problem when there isn't a way to rectify mistakes like are being described here.It really looks like a script kiddy ran a script that deleted a bunch of accounts based on some unknown reason. That might not be a problem if there was a way to address software gone bad but in this case the user is being judged in an arbitrary manner with little recourse to address the problem.Quote from: golden_labels on April 15, 2021, 11:21:11 pm

author: golden_labels
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 16, 2021, 01:40:52 am
content: Quote from: wizard69 on April 15, 2021, 11:38:13 pmWhich may be used as an argument. But first people affected must reach Facebook and convince it that they’re a valuable asset and ignoring them will bring harm to company’s image. Which is easier in a group, as a single person may only expect being treated as a nuisance to be shrugged off.Quote from: wizard69 on April 15, 2021, 11:38:13 pm“Should” is a deceptive word, as there is too many perspectives for its interpretation. Unless some qualification is provided, that question has no direct answer.But it doesn’t need to have one either, because that comparison is wrong. You can’t take just any company X, compare it to a particular class of companies doing Y and then claim that because some specific rules apply to companies doing Y, company X also has to be a subject to them — despite it’snotdoing Y. Facebook is not a telecommunication company. Communication between users is merely means of achieving the goal, not the goal itself.Sadly, this reveals weird ideas people have about entities such as Facebook or Alphabet. Which is quite a success, just like Amazon convincing people that they’re an online shopping platform. Both of them are focused on selling personal data and advertisements to customers and most services offered to other people are crafted to achieve that. And people delude themselves thinking they are customers, while they are asset or, more often, liability.In the case of Instagram: as a content consumer, you are exchanging your personal data for a service of presenting you with images and associated features; as a content creator you are working on attracting them in exchange for a place to show some images and, if you are smart, do some promotion of your person/company/organization. No strings attached, no obligations beyond that. For either side.Nothing like what telecoms’ services are. To telecoms you are a customer and their business model is based on you paying them for the service of offering you means to communicate. Even if some try to venture into spying on users, it’s only an additional source of income.

author: magic
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 16, 2021, 06:13:57 am
content: In short, phone companies would be fine controlling who you are talking to if they made money by eavesdropping on your calls. Then you are an asset rather than a customer and hence the practice doesn't violate the sacred laws of Capitalism.By the way, aren't you a software engineer too by any chance?

author: golden_labels
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 17, 2021, 06:32:05 am
content: Quote from: magic on April 16, 2021, 06:13:57 amIs that response to me? If yes: producing a strawman? Stop twisting my words and responding to things I never said — someone less attentive might think your answer makes sense.Quote from: magic on April 16, 2021, 06:13:57 amIndeed. What’s so funny about that?Of course if me being a dev makes my advice useless, anyone is free to give a better one.

author: cdev
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 17, 2021, 04:10:14 pm
content: As businesses depend on these companies and devote a lot of energy to producing content that the Internet companies basically milk for profit, they need to be regulated much more so that peoples efforts wont be wasted or stolen by them.I heard countless stories similar to this one recently. It seems Facebook, and Instagram are now acting like Twitter and arbitrarily deleting accounts people have put years of work into.There should be phone numbers and real people and an ombudsman and consistent process of grievance resolution at each one, to resolve peoples problems with them fairly and in a timely manner.. Soon. Or else they should be broken up - or externally regulated in a fair way, As they are becoming monopolies.

author: cdev
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 17, 2021, 04:13:34 pm
content: Quote from: magic on April 16, 2021, 06:13:57 amDon't they sell the information of who you connect to? I am pretty sure they do, and that that is a big part of their surveillance-based business models. Based on a document that I saw several years ago on wiklileaks.Governments are constantly asking them for information on people, and getting charged hefty fees for that info.

author: sahko123
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 17, 2021, 04:31:31 pm
content: my solution was to just create a new account and just add an underscore thankfully it had a small following of mainly people i knew (roughly 32 followers) anyway so not much damage done. But what i posted wasnt against anyrules or guidelines just random photos of what i was doing. Instagram didnt ban me cause they wanted to they banned me because of some dumb shit report bot

author: Buriedcode
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 17, 2021, 06:21:43 pm
content: Quote from: cdev on April 17, 2021, 04:13:34 pmThey make their money by selling information - that you provide to them in exchange for their service. By using their service, you agree to this. Whilst I don't particularly like this, what some seem to not get, or just ignore is that, these services cost money - and if you are not paying a fee, then you pay for it in other ways. It seems you want to be able to use their services for free, but then complain that they are using your information to make their money.

author: SilverSolder
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 18, 2021, 12:30:03 am
content: Quote from: Buriedcode on April 17, 2021, 06:21:43 pmAre there alternatives? These companies now have most people on board, so if you want to reach them... you've got to use them.

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 19, 2021, 08:04:18 am
content: Quote from: golden_labels on April 14, 2021, 03:28:23 amYes, a company cannot do whatever they want.If you want to dump dangerous waste material in the ground on your company premises, the environment agency will fine you.You cannot fire employees without a reason. They very well may sue you for doing such thing and win.Deleting someone's account, that relies on the income from that account is similar to firing someone. There isn't a law from protecting you from that. There should be. Internet is too new a deregulated.

author: SilverSolder
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 19, 2021, 11:57:35 am
content: Quote from: tszaboo on April 19, 2021, 08:04:18 amExactly, it is as if our politicians, and legal system, are 10 or 20 years behind the times.If someone says or does something on-line that is against the law, it shouldn't be up to private companies to deal with it... it should be a legal (civil or criminal) matter, like in the real world!

author: golden_labels
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 19, 2021, 08:21:57 pm
content: Quote from: sahko123 on April 17, 2021, 04:31:31 pmBut that is only offsetting the problem for the time being. If that has really hit many accounts, hopefully also some important ones, this is the moment you all may take some action to at least try to oppose. Have you tried messaging Dave and asking him for advice/opinion? You know, he has quite some experience and he has seen such occurrences in the past.What I would be worried about in your case is not Facebook making a dumb mistake from not caring about small accounts like yours. One of the possible scenarios is that some scammer was replicating your content and your account, indistinguishable from theirs, was nuked along with them. In such a case that may happen again.Quote from: tszaboo on April 19, 2021, 08:04:18 amPerhaps this statement is true, but that comparison invalid for reasons similar to what I have shown in my earlier response towizard69.Quote from: tszaboo on April 19, 2021, 08:04:18 amAgain, the same mistake: false parallel. OP is not an employee of Facebook and the forces that shape this engagement do not even work the same way. At best that style of comparison could be made to consider content creators underpaid workers — so underpaid that it by no chance can be considered viable income.Just because someone finds a way to earn larger money using a service, is in the lucky 0.01% of those who manage to profit and then decides to turn it their major income source, doesn’t make entity offering the service responsible for the income. This kind of reasoning instantly leads to absurd conclusions if applied to nearly any other similar case. Of course to me it doesn’t matter: not sticking here to any absolute statements, so one may as well believe that… as long as they’re consistent. With that type of reactions one is not.To make it clear, I’m not trying to argue there isn’t a problem and I’m not blind to it. There is, however, huge difference between noticing a problem and pointless bashing.

author: rcbuck
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 19, 2021, 08:37:22 pm
content: Personally I have never seen the need to have a FB, twitter, or Instagram account. I see absolutely no value is these services. Just a bunch of lemmings following other lemmings over the cliff.

author: SilverSolder
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 19, 2021, 08:42:02 pm
content: Quote from: rcbuck on April 19, 2021, 08:37:22 pmIf you are selling stuff to said lemmings before they go over the cliff, these services are useful to you!

author: John B
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 19, 2021, 08:55:16 pm
content: I think from a business perspective you'd be crazy not to utilise social media. You need to advertise and engage where people are looking, and that isn't TV, radio or newspaper anymore.The problem is that the ecosystem is currently an oligopoly that colludes with other media oligarchs to ensure that competition is stifled if not stamped out. See Parler as an example.Unfortunately people en masse gave the big few social media platforms all their power, to the point where even government agencies are dependant on them as a service.Decentralised social media federations are in the works, where the contents of multiple platforms and individual content streams can be collated to provide a larger web of content and a level of immunity from any one entity having the power to ban, censor or generally screw with.

author: thm_w
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 19, 2021, 09:36:42 pm
content: Quote from: rcbuck on April 19, 2021, 08:37:22 pmMove along then, you have zero reason to post in this thread.

author: cortex_m0
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 20, 2021, 12:36:16 am
content: Quote from: tszaboo on April 19, 2021, 08:04:18 amAmerican here. Yes, you can fire employees at any time without cause. The only thing you cannot do is fire someone for being in a protected class. A new boss can't come in and fire everyone wearing a yarmulke, for example, because religion is a protected class. However, the boss can come in and lay off a whole department because they want to outsource that function -- even if that department were predominantly composed of Jews. An employer would be within their rights to layoff employees by pulling names from a hat, although that would be a pretty stupid way to go about it.Wrongful termination lawsuits in the United States are usually contractual matters. If there is a union contract in place, or an employment contract, the terms of that contract can be litigated. The most common thing is whether severance pay is called for and whether the prescribed amount of severance was paid.I do however agree that there should be a means to reach customer service for these companies. I blame Google for that in large part - there was never good customer support for Gmail, even though one's email account is a critical piece of infrastructure for their online life.

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 20, 2021, 07:55:05 am
content: Quote from: cortex_m0 on April 20, 2021, 12:36:16 amYeah, but in large part of America , you can shoot someone for trespassing in your garden. And you get like 0 payed holiday a year. So it shouldn't be the level, we are measuring ourselves to. I'm not surprised that your laws are not protecting the employees. The OP isn't American. Applying the US law to foreigners, even if something happens online, and the company is located in the US... is a very very bad idea.

author: mvs
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 20, 2021, 09:52:16 am
content: Quote from: tszaboo on April 20, 2021, 07:55:05 amYes, but it was not a personal account of OP. B2B relations are much less regulated then B2C, even in the EU.There is a freedom of contract and applicable law can be defined there.

author: bobgotit
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: April 25, 2021, 01:16:03 am
content: Maybe it'sanother creator trying to get rid of the competition

author: Rick Law
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 08, 2022, 02:01:36 am
content: Quote from: magic on April 13, 2021, 05:48:45 amBut, are the software engineers making the business decisions?The senior execs (of these tech giants) might have been from software engineering background, but once they moved into a management position, they likely do not think like a software person anymore.

author: RoGeorge
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 08, 2022, 02:23:57 am
content: Quote from: Rick Law on April 08, 2022, 02:01:36 amThat was one year ago.The topic was resurrected yesterday by a 1 message poster,kseniacygan, with a generic reply that doesn't make much sense in the context. Probably a chat bot.

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 08, 2022, 05:16:38 am
content: Quote from: magic on April 15, 2021, 06:29:08 amForums have not generally been considered social media.