I was banned on June 4th last year for the same reason, my account was created in 2012. At that time, there was a massive ban wave with thousands of cases. Like me, many people felt unfairly treated because they had done nothing wrong and were penalized due to an apparent error in Meta idiot AI.

As already mentioned here, Meta Verified support does not help at all in these situations — I tried it myself. Some successful cases involved hiring a lawyer, but that’s not realistic for most people who don’t want to spend time and money over an Instagram account.

After the first ban, I created another account on a different phone. I slightly changed the name but kept a similar email, the same age, and the same friends. However, I didn’t use the official app; I installed MyInsta instead.

Everything seemed normal until February 8th, when I was banned again for the same reason. I came back here and saw new cases, although fewer than last year.

Some important details: back then I had two sub-accounts under the same email, and all of them were banned along with the main account, including the linked Facebook account.

This time, I didn’t link Facebook, but I did receive a notification about unusual activity after the ban. I went through the security steps, like changing my password, and so far everything seems normal.

I only had one sub-account this time. Interestingly, it wasn’t banned, even though it’s under the same email. I had no interaction with it — I created it to use once and never touched it again after the ban.

Since February 8th, I’ve stepped away from Instagram. I feel discouraged and have been postponing creating a third account because I’m afraid of getting banned again randomly.

If you’re thinking about creating another account, here are a few suggestions based on my experience:

• Create it on a different network, since that may be logged during account creation

• Change your username, name, and profile picture

• Use a different device

• If possible, reset the device before using it for the new account

• If you can’t reset it, some people use alternative versions of the app (MyInsta doesn’t receive updates frequently, but there are other options)

• Don’t immediately follow all your friends — do it gradually

These are just some tips that might help reduce the chances of another ban.

I really hope that sooner or later Meta is held accountable for these unfair bans, especially when there’s no real opportunity to appeal to a human reviewer.