According to various news reports, one user was earning up to $30,000 a year through partnerships and using the money to pay for college.
A Facebook spokesperson tells reporters that the accounts were disabled following multiple violations of platform policies.
Earlier this month, Instagram updated its account removal policies. It can now remove accounts that have a certain number of violations within a window of time.
Based on the timing, it’s possible the account purge is related to Instagram’s latest policy change.
In any case, this whole situation illustrates the danger of building a business solely on social media. Those who were once thriving on Instagram are now having a rough go of it.
Organic post engagement is down, sponsored post engagement is down, and Instagram continues to expand its test of hiding like counts.
Now, Instagram is swiftly deleting popular accounts without giving them an opportunity to appeal the decision.
And that’s perfectly fine, technically speaking because Instagram can do what it wants with its own platform.
Unlike having a website, which is an owned property, people have no ownership of their social media pages.
Instagram can throttle the reach of pages, suspend them, or delete them permanently.
It looks like uncertain times are ahead for people who rely on Instagram for a large part of their income.