An outage on Facebook’s Instagram on Monday caused the social media platform to inform millions of users that their accounts were suspended. When Instagram users tried to access their accounts, they were presented with the message: “We suspended your account on October 31, 2022.”
Many users of Mark Zuckerberg’s social media platform were unable to log into their accounts on Monday, according to a report by the Verge.
Mark Zuckerberg deep in thought (Drew Angerer /Getty)
As for Instagram users who were successful in logging into their accounts, they — including this reporter — noticed that their follower count had suddenly dropped, as significant numbers of followers appeared to have been suspended.
A quick glance at soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo’s Instagram account, for example, shows that he has apparently lost 3 million followers from the 493 million his account had just one day ago, notes the Verge.
Moreover, Instagram’s own primary account is down by over 1 million followers.
Instagram confirmed the issue in a Twitter post on Monday, writing, “We’re aware that some of you are having issues accessing your Instagram account. We’re looking into it and apologize for the inconvenience,” alongside the hashtag “Instagram Down.”
We're aware that some of you are having issues accessing your Instagram account. We're looking into it and apologize for the inconvenience. #instagramdown
— Instagram Comms (@InstagramComms) October 31, 2022
“My Instagram was disabled for no reason. Can you help? All my posts dating back to 2012 are gone. I didn’t violate any guidelines and I can’t seem to submit a form that it was a mistake. HELP!” one social media user wrote in a comment to Instagram’s tweet.
The tweet included a screenshot of a purported message the social media user had received from Instagram, which read, “We suspended your account on October 31, 2022.”
My Instagram was disabled for no reason. Can you help? All my posts dating back to 2012 are gone. I didn’t violate and guidelines and I can’t seem to submit a form that it was a mistake. HELP! pic.twitter.com/qt4WpQZJqy
— WetBlanket (@corbaby_) October 31, 2022
Several other dismayed social media users posted the same screenshot in the comment section of Instagram’s tweet.
Reports of the problem appear to be concentrated among iPhone users, with some saying the Instagram app was recently crashing before Monday morning.
You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Facebook and Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.
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