At first, it failed and threw an error message about enabling cookies which made no sense. Then I got a pathetic error message stating "Sorry, you can only disable your account once a week. Try again in a few days." Pretty pathetic.

https://imgur.com/a/5yHJM1Y

Did you temporarily disable your account instead of deleting it? Deletion appears to only be available from web/mobile web, which is not great but deletion is only three steps. [1]

[1] https://help.instagram.com/370452623149242

I tried emailing back for more information as to why I was deactivated (since I did nothing wrong, unless following people without posting is wrong?) and all they could regurgitate was the shpeel that I had to send them a picture of myself with the code in order for them to help me.

Long story short, I will never use Instagram.

That seems like a situation ripe for abuse. Just continually report any account you want taken down.

After 24 hours I tried to log in again and to my surprise, my account wasn't just temporarily disabled anymore but permanently deactivated and I was met with this message:

> Your account has been disabled for violating our terms. Learn how you may be able to restore your account. https://help.instagram.com/521372114683554

How can I allegedly have broken Instagram terms when I just created the account and even verified it by phone? So I visited that link and asked them to restore it. What I get is an email by facebook that demands I send them a picture of myself holding a paper that I wrote a specific code on. Verbatim the email is this:

> Hello, thank you for contacting us. Before we can help you, you must confirm that you are the owner of the account. Please respond to this email and attach a photograph of yourself, where you hold a piece of paper with the following, handwritten code on it: *** Please make sure that the photo fulfills the following criteria: - shows the above mentioned, handwritten code on a clean piece of paper, followed by your full name and username - shows both of your hands holding the paper as well as your complete face - it is well-lit and not too small, dark or blurred - is attached as a JPEG-file to your response E-Mail Note: Even if this account does not contain and pictures of yourself or it represents somebody or something else, we can only help you when we receive a picture of you which fulfills these criteria.

Am I the only one who finds this incredibly intrusive? I know I might be partially beating a dead horse here, as everyone knows Meta is pure evil. But this email really "gave me the rest". I wouldn't use IG for posting pictures of myself anyway but now I won't ever be using anything from Meta even for business reasons.

Are there really no less intrusive ways than the above to prove ones ownership of account?? Why is email and phone verification not enough anymore these days? Is this the type of "progress" happening at FAANG? LOL

So I'm not looking forward to trying to sign up with them.

A month or so ago instagram deleted my account permanently because their system falsely flagged it as "suspicious activity". My account was never compromised or spammy. It was simply because I used the web interface from a few locations as well as the mobile app. Really frustrating. I don't actually miss it though, I thought I would.

> "We encourage people to actively log in and use Instagram once they create an account. To keep your account active, be sure to log in and share photos, as well as like and comment on photos. Accounts may be permanently removed due to prolonged inactivity, so please use your account once you sign up!"

Source: https://www.facebook.com/help/instagram/294919817276863

The wording is terribly obtuse and seems targeted more for username squatters.

Would be helpful if Instagram defined what a period of prolonged inactivity is. Shady nonetheless, considering they didn't even notify her informing her that her username was revoked due to inactivity.

> An account is determined to be inactive based on a number of things, including the date the account was created and whether the account has been sharing photos, commenting on photos, liking photos and logging in.

https://help.instagram.com/397846020286683?helpref=related&r...

From the article:

> Kevin admits that he didn't have that many followers and didn't post often - but he would use it to like and follow other people's posts.

For all we know, he hadn't logged in or posted anything for a year.

But, still, Instagram should be a good landlord here and at least inform the user before just yanking their account handle.

This is speculative, but probably try to recover your Facebook account first (because it's already verified), and then choose the option to try and create an Instagram account based on your logged-in Facebook account.

I haven't tried this in practice as I haven't created a new account in a long time, so there's no guarantee this will work. If it doesn't, then unfortunately you would have to block off time to persistently follow the instructions as closely as you can (sending your photo and a note), likely over several days to create the account.

The one that really grinds my gears is that I made an Instagram to follow some artists I really enjoyed browsing, and for whatever reason their algorithm flagged me, and so they deactivated my account. In order to reactivate my account they requested a picture of myself holding a paper with the ID code provided in the email (which I refused to do). When I tried asking why I was deactivated I was simply given a canned respond requesting that I give them a picture of myself with the code proving that I am indeed a real human being.

Normal users cannot even put a link into an instagram post (pointing to whatever external site).... it seems pretty intentional to me (to keep you on their platform)