If we’re being honest, we threw a tantrum on Instagram. It was micro tantrum. Restrained even. And in our defense, it was our last resort. If you weren’t following along on social, we were locked out of our Instagram account from January 4th through the 16th. There was no rhyme or reason to the lockout, nary a warning to be found. We’d even diligently had all security measures in place with email, phone, backups, and Facebook–still, no amount of 2FA could save us. After the lockout, we could post ad-hoc through Meta’s Business Suite, but our capabilities dwindled from there: no captions, no stories, no comments, and no editing. As a publication whose success depends on traffic-driving posts, this is a living nightmare, especially for our brave Social Media Editor fighting on the frontlines. After reaching out to 41 Meta employees, Head of Fashion at Instagram Eva Chen’s team, and endless dead-end “open tickets” and chatbots on the app itself, we resorted to a public cry for help. White text on plain black, we begged the question, “WTF meta?” On the following slide, we briefly explained our dilemma and asked our audience, “Has this happened to you?” The outpouring of agreement and commiseration was swift and abundant.
Content creators and small business owners alike shared incredibly similar stories; they were locked out of their accounts for months, sometimes years, oftentimes indefinitely. They were unable to reach any person who could field their questions. Some of them resorted to legal action. Even colleagues we knew at Meta sympathized with our plight, many of them responding they’d been laid off or quit due to these very systemic issues. It really begs the question: How can a site that demands your reliance, both professionally and personally, have absolutely no recourse for customer service complaints? In a platform whose strength exists solely because of its users, why are we met with radio silence? Because social media monopolies grew swiftly in the uncharted waters of the World Wide Web, we were not prepared to regulate–legally, social, financially or otherwise–the boom of social media platforms that have changed the landscape of our modern world. Businesses, publications, and individual creators are now at the mercy of the depersonalized machine of unregulated social platforms.
I’m going to take you on a guided meditation. Imagine you’re a small business owner with a small brick-and-mortar boutique–survey all the little goodies and knickknacks you’ve so lovingly curated. You arrive at work one day, and someone has changed all the locks on your storefront. You call one locksmith–straight to voicemail. You call another–they are on vacation and refer you to their colleague. The colleague refers you back to the first locksmith. You spend the entire afternoon calling every locksmith in the phonebook. You’re about to lose all hope (and an entire work day of business), and then finally, someone picks up. They give you the instructions: “Before I unlock the door, you need to send me a video of your face to confirm your identity and hold up a piece of paper with a handwritten code, your full name, and the name of your store.” You send a video of yourself with the handwritten ransom note. Their response: “We cannot verify your identity.” I will abandon the analogy because the point is abundantly clear, but this is the waking nightmare of any courageous Social Editor when they lock horns with Meta. There is no clear recourse for businesses when they are forced to function with their public-facing channels tied behind their back.
By all accounts, we got lucky. After our mini tantrum, we caused enough of a fuss to light a fire under the ass of a few good samaritans that work at Meta who reached out after seeing our post (shout out to Bobby, Helena, Hjordys, Kristie, Teri, and Jax). With the privilege of our large channel and some editorial caché, our problem was fixed. But many are not afforded that “white glove” treatment. In fact, many content creators wake up to find their accounts deleted without any prerequisite warning. Others were locked out indefinitely. Some surreptitiously shadowbanned with no ability to stem their rapidly diminishing numbers. Sex workers and other marginalized communities are unfairly targeted for posts that do nothing to violate community guidelines, while other creators stoke engagement with images of shocking violence or political misinformation. It’s no secret that Meta has dubious internal politics when it comes to selling data, and arbitrary censorship.
After twelve days of being locked out by Meta, we were awakened to the lack of care given to the platform's users and consumers. Unfortunately, outside of being slapped with arbitrary restrictions, we are all, to varying degrees, at the mercy of Meta’s chokehold on modern commerce and communication. From Facebook moms posting political Minion memes to multi-million dollar businesses, it is impossible to exist online without surrendering to their monopoly. As individuals who use the platform recreationally, we have, by and large, acquiesced to Stockholm syndrome–each of us a little Patty Hearst, gleefully participating in the algorithm and wearing a jaunty beret to boot. But like a frog in hot water, we were luxuriating in the tepid waters of endless content until we realized we had no way out. For both individuals and businesses, we have become synonymous with our online profiles–it’s a codependent relationship with an intimidating imbalance of power.
In searching for a conclusion to this two-week-long saga, we are at a loss for closure. There is a good chance this will happen again. But the royal “we”--from micro-influencers to hundred-million platform celebrities–need to keep throwing tantrums when bullied by Meta. Be the inconvenient thorn in their side to remind them that behind every company, publication, and personality, there is a human on the other side. Yes, we are “users” endlessly dependent on their platform, but they also cannot exist without us. We might be throwing stones at a monolith, but annoyance is its own form of resistance, small as it may be.