Another rant about Instagram !!

[Seiko7A38]

I wrote this only a couple of days ago, in another thread. Rather than take that thread 'off topic' I'll expand on it here.

I must admit, having already had one Instagram account deleted and recently experienced annoying problems with my current one, I've begun to lose interest in uploading more photos. However, I do find it useful for discovering new stuff.
If nothing else, at least once per day, I still habitually run searches on #seiko7a38 and #7a38 ....

The sad story of my original Instagram account seiko7a38forum is documented in this thread on the old archived forum:
Seiko 7A38 Forum on Instagram. On 17th January this year, my Instagram account was disabled, subsequently almost immediately deleted, without my being given the opportunity to request a review or appeal - as I wrote at the time:

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Anybody following seiko7a38collector on Instagram, who might be reading this (or cares) may be wondering why I have made so little progress over the last 10 months, having only got as far as uploading photos of my 7A38-6050 SJS058's:



Apart from the fact I've been busy writing stuff on the forum, frankly, apart from the continual sycophantic pandering and utter dross that I see posted on Instagram, I'm becoming increasingly demotivated by its extremely flakey nature, hence my comment about having: recently experienced annoying problems.

[Seiko7A38]

Over the last month or so, my account has been temporarily locked a number of times, because Instagram claim they have detected unusual or suspicious activity. I was greeted by the latest variation on that theme earlier this morning, when I clicked on my usual browser link:

Instagram-TempLocked-UnusualActivity-23-11-2021.png (15.55 KiB) Viewed 8401 times

On this occasion I was forced to reset my password (not the first time that has happened).

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Other variations on this spate of bloody annoying messages have recently included:

Instagram-UnusualActivity-27-10-2021.png (13.78 KiB) Viewed 8400 times

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Instagram-ProfileInfo-13-11-2021-Redacted.png (18.53 KiB) Viewed 8400 times

Instagram-Confirm-13-11-2021-Redacted.png (15.99 KiB) Viewed 8400 times

The increasing regularity of these occurrences doesn't give me any incentive whatsoever to continue uploading more photos to my account. All it will take is one lockout where I'm unable (for whatever reason) to regain access to my account and it will be automatically disabled (read deleted) after 30 days !

I've a pretty good idea what the problem is. Unlike the majority of Instagram users, I access and use it solely from my PC (Windows laptop). Instagram was originally designed to be a smartphone app (for the benefit of the greasy-fingered screen-smearing brigade). It does work on a PC after a fashion (with some loss of functionality). This latest spate of problems started in the last week of October, not long after the last Chrome update (V96.0) on 22nd October.

[Seiko7A38]

Thing is, I'm not alone in experiencing this problem. Googling reveals there are thousands (if not tens of thousands) of Instagram users who've been mysteriously locked out of their accounts or had them deleted without any valid reason. This ongoing thread on Reddit: Account locked for suspicious activity is typical.

That long running Reddit thread includes a link to a petition on change.org, which has received over 5000 signatures !
Force Instagram to change the process for disabled accounts

Not that it's likely to help my situation, out of curiosity I joined that Reddit Instagram sub group and had a quick browse through the recent posts. Another poor schmuck posted a new topic about his disabled account only half an hour ago:
Is my Instagram deleted? Or is there any way to retrieve it back

Note to self: These 3 links to Instagram Customer Support may come in handy for recovering a deactivated account:

https://help.instagram.com/contact/1652567838289083
https://help.instagram.com/contact/396169787183059
https://help.instagram.com/contact/606967319425038

[Seiko7A38]

Another day - same old shit. I was greeted by this slight variation on the alleged unusual activity theme this morning.

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Instagram-ConfirmationCode-25-11-2021-Redacted.png (10.23 KiB) Viewed 8336 times

[Seiko7A38]

And again this evening ! This is getting f***ing ridiculous !

Instagram-Confirm-its-you-28-11-2021.png (13.69 KiB) Viewed 8320 times

[Seiko7A38]

Over the last month or so, my account has been temporarily locked a number of times, because Instagram claim they have detected unusual or suspicious activity. I was greeted by the latest variation on that theme earlier this morning, when I clicked on my usual browser link:

Instagram-TempLocked-SupiciousActivity-23-11-2021.png (15.55 KiB) Viewed 8210 times

On this occasion I was forced to reset my password (not the first time that has happened).

Having done little more than add a few 'likes' to other posters' photos this week, I was met with this again this morning. Is it any wonder I'm extremely reluctant to upload anything more to my Instagram account ?

Instagram-TempLocked-SupiciousActivity-11-12-2021.png (15.57 KiB) Viewed 8210 times

[Andrea80]

it's very strange! Did you try to contact the support? I followed your old account and now your current... It's really a pity can't see your amazing collection and talk with you also in IG.
I hope you can solve this problem soon

[Seiko7A38]

I never did bother contacting Instagram support. However I'm pleased to say that annoying recurring problem of being locked out of my account seems to have mysteriously cleared up all by itself some time in late December. Whereas I could have started uploading more photos then, I thought I'd give it a couple of months. Putting it off again, I decided I'd wait until I reached 200 followers. That finally happened yesterday.

Instagram-seiko7a38collector-Profile-200Followers.jpg (183.46 KiB) Viewed 7682 times