Instagram Jail: Understanding, Identifying, and Escaping the Jail

What is Instagram jail?

A typical jail is a confinement where people are kept after they have committed an offence for a predetermined period. The fear of jail is the beginning of wisdom for many.

It can also be referred to as a disciplinary place with restrictions where an accused is expected to learn specific lessons and avoid the mistakes that led to the jail term. The time spent in jail can be temporary or permanent.

Don’t fret, the Instagram jail is temporary and not physical.

An Instagram jail is modeled after the typical one but this time, it’s a user’s account that is affected. It is a temporary restriction or ban placed on a user who has violated the community guidelines.

Violations may include spamming, posting or spreading false information, using automation tools, or partaking in suspicious activities.

When restrictions are placed on your account, you will lose the ability to perform tasks like posting content, commenting on posts, and following and unfollowing accounts. This is not desirable especially if you promote your business on Instagram. 

Consequences of Instagram Jail

While the Instagram jail concerns activities that take place in the digital space, the consequences may vary from mild to severe. Here are some disadvantages of finding yourself in the punitive box.

1. Your posts can be permanently removed.
2. You may lose followers
3. If you are an influencer, you risk the possibility of a damaged reputation
4. If you promote your business on Instagram, your sales and profits may be affected.
5. Repeated violations can lead to a permanent ban
6. You can face legal trouble especially when your posts contain content that is incriminating, copyrighted, explicit or defamatory.
7. Posting other people’s photos or videos without their consent can also lead to many troubles.
8. Serious legal violations can land you in a physical jail or make you cuff out thousands of dollars in fines.

How to Avoid the ‘Instagram Jail’

Being in an Instagram jail can adversely affect the reputation of a user. For those who promote products or businesses, they may incur losses.

Therefore, a user should try as much as possible to avoid Instagram jail. By following these steps, you can use your Instagram accounts without facing limitations.

Ensure that your posts do not contain content that violates Instagram Community Guidelines

Some content might be offensive or politically incorrect. They may be noticed by another user or a moderator and reported. It may also be flagged by the Instagram algorithm that checks for content violations.

Understanding the content guidelines of the community is the first step to avoid violating them.

Avoid being overactive on a new account

Getting too active after creating a new account can make you behave like a bot. Users willing to quickly get large followings are mostly guilty of this.

They follow more than 30 accounts per hour within first few hours and like an unprecedented high number of posts or comments. New accounts operating this way can easily be flagged for restriction.

Do not spam

Understandably, you want to promote products on Instagram. Going by the sheer number of marketing posts that are in the community, it is essentially a norm. However, replying to posts with spamming messages will violate the guidelines of the community.

You may want to do some marketing on Instagram by leveraging its large community, thus prompting the use of unsolicited messages especially in the comment section. In large numbers, these messages may be flagged as spam.

Such messages are easily identifiable because they carry markers such as the structure, names of products, and links to other websites. They are classified as spam messages that are strongly against community guidelines.

Conduct yourself in a civilized manner

How you conduct yourself in the community may help you avoid or put you in the Instagram jail. Your posts are all about creating, supporting or uplifting your brand and what you stand for.

Some actions can paint a picture of you as being uncivilized or pushing an unpopular agenda not only in your post but also in the way you interact with other users in the comment section.

Using abusive language or violating other people’s privacy can lead to depression, suicidal thoughts, anxiety, violence, and low self-esteem.

Instagram moderators are always looking for such content and will impose punitive actions on their posters. Be friendly and polite to other users, practice self-love, and report any offensive and violent posts.

Your I.P. address should not be changed too often

Since your I.P. is an indication of your location, by changing it frequently, you are simply showing the Instagram protection algorithm that your location may not be trusted. Your activities on Instagram will become suspicious.

Fraudsters and hackers are known to use tools like VPNs to change locations often so as not to be traced to their actual addresses. Instagram also wants to protect the community from account hackers whose specialties are to hijack accounts and use them to commit fraudulent activities.

If an account is hacked, the location will also change. For instance, when an account whose I.P. is domiciled in South Africa suddenly changes to France, restrictions may be imposed to safeguard not only the community but the actual owner of the account too.

Avoid using banned hashtags

All hashtags are linked to a subject of interest which may be positive or negative, legal or illegal, non-offensive or offensive. There are almost an infinite number of hashtags that are available for use or generated to support a movement, ideology, individual, group, or event.

Be careful which one to use because a massive 1,863 banned hashtags can get you in the Instagram jail. Some of these hashtags are #adulting, #alone, #asia, #besties, #beautyblogger, #brain, #ice, #hotweather, #kickoff, #kissing, #underage, #xanax, #thighs, #youngmodel, etc.

Banned hashtags are associated with inappropriate content, politics, crime, sensitive mental health discussions, misinformation, spam, wrong medical advice, harassment, discrimination, racism, explicit content, and other vices.

If you are unsure of which one to use, there are numerous hashtag generators online which can be used to produce those that are suitable and acceptable on Instagram posts.

Buying followers and likes

To achieve rapid success on Instagram, you may be tempted to turn to third parties to buy followers and likes. Most followers being sold to you by third parties may turn out to be bots, thus you run the risk of running foul of the community guidelines.

Before going this route, take into cognizance that accounts are restricted to a maximum number of 60 likes, comments, messages, and followers per hour. For new accounts, the maximum is 30 for the previously mentioned activities including unfollowing an account.

Buying an account

You may be tempted to buy an existing account with many followers to hit the ground running on Instagram. However, buying any account of any type is against the community guidelines.

While signing up, users agree not to sell, transfer or license any account rights to others.

How long can you be in Instagram jail for?

Being in an Instagram jail is a punitive measure that is in place to regulate the activities of users.

Depending on the severity of the offence committed, your account may be restricted from 1 hour to 3 weeks. The most common duration is between 24 to 48 hours. 

How do you end up in Instagram jail?

Every user likes to determine the reason for ending up in Instagram jail. It is due to certain activities that were carried out by you that were deemed suspicious. It is hardly an error from the Instagram end but glitches cannot be ruled out sometimes.

You do not just end up in jail except if some guidelines have been violated whether by your fault or through someone who is trying to gain access to your account.

The three most common reasons that will make you end up in the Instagram jail are

• Following way too many accounts in a short period.
• Unfollowing so many accounts at once.
• Spamming. 

The first and second reasons can be done by using automated programs such as bots. Other less common reasons are changing of IPs too frequently, inappropriate content and the use of banned hashtags.

Once you end up in the Instagram jail, review your activities and identify potential reasons to prevent future reoccurrences. Contacting Instagram about this issue may not produce the desired results based on the experiences of several users.

There are probably several users enquiring about the same thing which is likely to overwhelm the 

How to find out if you’re in Instagram jail?

When your actions such as posting a comment or adding followers abruptly stop working or responding after repeated tries then you have been placed in the Instagram jail. You may also receive an “Action Blocked” Message, this is a certain confirmation that your account has been restricted.

You are not alone if you find yourself in this situation. You are also not the first to be thrown in the penalty box. You are told your account cannot perform certain actions to protect the community and you are given an option to inform Instagram if you feel they made a mistake.

What happens when you are in Instagram jail?

Many of your actions stop getting responses. In the warning prompt, you are simply presented with two options when restrictions have been placed on your Instagram account.

The first is to write Instagram if you feel they have made a mistake. A button is provided for that but don’t get your fingers burnt. You may continue to click to select this option for eternity without success.

It seems Instagram is not prepared to respond to a large number of users who find themselves in this jail. I guess they do not have the manpower and are not ready to waste resources on this.

The second option is to click the “OK” option to accept your faith.

How do I fix my Instagram jail?

As hinted above, to fix your Instagram jail status, you are only presented with two options. Either you try to tell Instagram that you are not guilty or accept the punishment. By accepting the punishment, you have to wait out the period of the ban.

If you have been performing repetitive tasks like following/unfollowing, stop at once. At this point, know you are screwed for the next few hours to 3 weeks. These are determined by Instagram and are not explicitly stated.

No matter what you do, complain, yell, or lament, this is a jail where you are meant to be isolated. It wont work but you have personal freedom to do as you wish.

Also, do not pay those who claim to be fixers or Instagram technicians because they will gladly take your money and wait till the restrictions are lifted.

The best thing to do is to be patient and stop all activities that can lead to more severe temporary restrictions or a permanent ban.

Conclusion

The Instagram jail is a regulatory feature that protects the community from harm. Commercial spamming, fraud, account hacking and offensive language are rife on the internet if they are not effectively checkmated.

We as good community members should support Instagram for their policies on these restrictions to make the community feel safe and secure. Your goals or purpose on Instagram should not lead to violations of their guidelines.

Take time to read and understand these guidelines to play fair on the platform. Always remember that the community does not allow the use of automated tasks to follow and unfollow accounts. The use of certain hashtags are prohibited and some content can be categorized as inappropriate.

Once you learn to abide by Instagram’s rules, the community will become a safer place and you will completely avoid getting into the Instagram jail whether now or in the future.

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