At around 1.30pm UK time on October 31, Instagram experienced a strange outage that suspended thousands of user accounts.
However, after a brief outage last night, the accounts were restored and the company said it had resolved the issue, which had temporarily suspended users’ accounts without notice. The Meta-owned company has not revealed what caused the problem.
“We’re aware that some of you are having issues accessing your Instagram account. We’re looking into it and apologize for the inconvenience,” Instagram said.
Screenshots show how many people are being blocked at the same time. “We suspended your account on October 31, 2022,” the warning says. It is unclear how widespread the problem is.
Accounts are being suspended, but some users also lose followers, most likely because other users have been excluded from the social media service.
The account is no longer “visible to people on Instagram right now,” according to the notice, because it is in breach of community guidelines.
The notice allows users to challenge the decision within 30 days, but many users have complained on Twitter that they were simply referred to a black screen when they tried to appeal the decision.
However, Instagram has revealed that there is a problem at its end, and Instagram did not actively lock accounts. Instagram explained in a tweet: “We’ve resolved this bug now – it caused people in different parts of the world to have issues accessing their accounts and caused a temporary change for some in number of followers. Sorry.”
The sources for this piece include an article in The Sun.
