In an unusually strict moderation, Instagram has banned a user’s account for commenting with the word “paradise” on another user’s post.
The user complained about the ban in a post on 17 February, and was supported by dozens of other users who have experienced similar situations on the social media platform recently.
A random event?
Several users have complained of being banned for writing completely harmless comments or posts on Instagram, such as this one.
The user said someone posted a pic of them in an Indonesian waterfall, and he only commented with the word ”paradise,’ after which Instagram removed the comment and restricted the account so that he can’t comment anymore.
Another user complained saying:
“All 4 of my instagram accounts got banned like two days ago and idk what I did. I’ve been trying to just make a new account and move on but they keep getting banned. They also banned my brother’s account too for no reason. It makes no sense. Now I’m basically soft banned from instagram cuz every new account I make gets banned. I think I’m ip blocked or something. Idk how to fix this but it’s very annoying.”
However, it seems the bans and restrictions are completely random and do not affect certain users no matter what kind of content they post. One commented saying:
“It seems to be pretty random. I call people scumbags and Nazis all the time with no issues.”
Some suggest that such bans which affect even new accounts created may be as a result of an IP ban, meaning any account created from the same IP address will be banned automatically.
The way around it would be to use a different internet with a different IP address to create a new account.
Is it AI moderation?
Whenever such random bans happen, people are very quick to blame AI for the problem.
Instagram users also recently complained about group posts being labeled as “AI edited”, which raised suspicion that the platform may be using AI to do some moderation.
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