Thousands of Instagram accounts across the world have been suspended all at once, leading to one of the biggest outages in the app’s history. Now, there’s one question that many have been posing across other social media: Is Russia involved?
“Mysterious crash and suspension,” one user wrote. “I blame Russia.”
“Maybe Russia” said another user.
“Did Russia hack Instagram?” asked someone else .
Instagram and other meta apps are banned in Russia, with Russia-based accounts all suspended earlier this year.
At the present moment, there is no proof to suggest that Russia is behind the outages, but that has not stopped speculation.
So, if not Russia, why do apps keep going down?
The reality is that one error can cause a snowball effect very quickly. One year ago, Instagram and Meta had a major outage, which it blamed on server issues, saying it was due to “configuration changes on the backbone routers that coordinate network traffic between our data centres”.
“We’re aware that some people are having trouble accessing our apps and products. We’re working to get things back to normal as quickly as possible, and we apologize for any inconvenience,” they said at the time.
Meta has still not commented on the current outage.
We’ll keep you posted as more unfolds.
How to get your account back
Don’t worry, you’re not alone. Thousands of people across the world just had their Instagram account suspended, locked, or deleted, without any explanation as to why. Luckily, there’s a solution.
First, when your account is suspended, you’re going to receive a notification. That notification will tell you they suspended you account on 31 October 2022, with 30 days to disagree with this decision before their account is fully deleted.
The reason given is that the account doesn’t follow community guidelines, and the account needs to be confirmed.
Meta, the app’s owners, have yet to comment on why the issue is happening, or if the accounts will be reinstated, but the notification also gives a way to reinstate your account.
Want to fix it? Here’s how.
How to get your Instagram account reinstated after suspension
- Close the app, get off, and then log in to your account
- At the bottom of the suspension click the ‘Disagree with Decision’ option.
- If it lets you do this, enter all the relevant information and submit, as Meta is likely already working to get these accounts back.
- If this option gives you an error, visit the Instagram Help site here.
- Next, you can contact them directly via email [email protected] or via phone +1-650-543-4800.
- Nothing getting through? Wait shortly until Meta comments on the error, as the error is affecting thousands across the world and thus likely will be fixed in due course, as it is likely just a glitch.
Instagram is down across the world
“A friend of mine was literally sending kitten videos when her account got suddenly blocked for violating community guidelines,” said Andrea, a Dubai resident. “Everyone is panicking.”
The issue apparently started at around 4:30pm GST, when users across the world took to downdetector.com and twitter to report the issue.
The notification is telling users that they suspended their account on 31 October 2022, with 30 days to disagree with this decision before their account is fully deleted.
So don’t stress too much, as your account is not fully gone for 30 days.
|Did anyone else’s Instagram just get suspended for no reason? And now Instagram won’t even bother to let you appeal it just gives you an error?” wrote one Twitter user.
“Is my account really suspended?” wrote another.
We’ll keep you posted as the situation unfolds.
In the mean time, we’ll see you on Twitter, everybody.