The popular photo and video-sharing platform Instagram has made an unexpected move by suddenly suspending many meme accounts on Christmas.
The social media platform cracks down on a number of pages that violate its terms. This isn't the first time Instagram has done this during the holidays.
For example, back in December 2014, the company removed hundreds of thousands of accounts in a move people called "Instagram rapture."
But rarely it does the move by affecting so many notable pages at once.
According to an Instagram spokesperson, the social media giant is cracking down on the theft, trading, and sale of Instagram usernames, which many of them made up of easily searchable one-word handles.
For those Instagram influencers and users who have been affected, this Instagram move is a nightmare.
What frustrated many of those meme creators about this mass ban is that they have no resource to get back on track, and no way to learn more about their situation.
While users have their own rage and opinion about Instagram's ban, some memers who were affected could be taking the fall for bad action by previous owners.
Some suspected that Instagram was cracking down on a rogue employee who had illegitimately got their hands on these usernames using Instagram's internal dashboard and then sold those unique usernames to demanding regular users. Some people also wondered whether the purge was somehow tied to people’s devices, since Instagram is known to have punished spammers by deleting all the accounts associated with a specific device or IP address.
Another speculation is that Instagram accounts that were switched too quickly between public and private were targeted. This is known as a growth hack many users with huge accounts have been doing.
The sad thing about this move is that, many of the banned account holders said that they have done nothing wrong, and never violated Instagram's rules. In fact plenty of the banned users had run their accounts for years without any problem whatsoever.
The ban here, came suddenly without prior warning. And following the purge, many of those users had their income source suddenly taken from their very eyes.
But in any ways, most of those meme accounts that have been purged, may not receive any detailed answer about what exactly they have done wrong. This is a showcase of how volatile and fragile users are on social media, as platforms say that they are regulated but never seems to be that transparent about it.
Instagram users who have made a lot of money from their accounts, are all subject to almost no oversight.
What's more, many Instagram users are known to use scammy schemes to increase the number of their followers, likes and comments. Couple that with the fact that the main account holder is often obscured, dealing with these people is indeed a challenge for Instagram.
On one hand, Instagram relies on these users with huge followers for engagement. But on the other hand, Instagram is also responsible to protect its general users from spam.
Not all Instagram pages are created equal. And this ban is somehow showing that users are playing on a rented ground.
It’s a clear warning for any account holder no matter how many followers they have, Instagram still owns the app; no matter how big they are and how influential they have become, users can disappear in a blink of an eye.
On Christmas Eve, the news is indeed not the very best surprise at all.