RM, a 21-year-old entrepreneur living in South Korea, knows the feeling of having an Instagram account suddenly erased. This sudden loss is having a devastating financial impact and shaking up his burgeoning enterprises. RM operates an independent clothing design company and promotes underground music events. He’s developed an impressive digital outreach, with 5,700 followers on his business account and close to 4,000 contacts on his personal account. Both accounts were subsequently taken down by Meta, Instagram’s parent company, claiming they had violated undisclosed terms of service.
The removal of RM’s accounts occurred with zero warning and without any explanation that he was somehow breaking any community standards. Just six days before the ban went into effect, RM had sold 1,500 tickets to an electronic dance music event in London. It was a great new milestone for him! The unexpected deletion of his pages has radically restricted his capacity to market his company. As a consequence, he has lost thousands of pounds worth of sales.
Given RM’s background, his situation would be difficult even under ideal conditions. He represents the inner-city, single-parent home that the Revolution produced, where he rolled up his sleeves and got to work creating his firms. His experiences highlight the vulnerability of young entrepreneurs who rely heavily on social media platforms for income and brand identity.
To make matters worse, RM believes a hacker was already able to access his accounts before they were deleted. The anonymous hacker deleted all the unjust settings, including RM’s account with a private status, changing it to public. This laid bare sensitive personal information that had been collected over decades. This breach further compounds RM’s anguish as he is forced to come to terms with the irretrievable loss of his privacy. It also steals $17 billion in potential business from him.
In times of day, RM talked about the emotional burden that comes with losing access to his online home.
“For my generation, an Instagram profile can be not only a sole source of income but an identity, and the severance of mine has been difficult to recover from.” – RM
As RM goes through this unexpected setback, he is definitely not alone. Now they’re telling their stories. Fellow students and young entrepreneurs like you are… Meta’s sudden cancellation of their accounts left them on the brink of collapse, and no recourse to save their developing enterprises.
A lot of people in this space are using social media platforms, especially Instagram, to market themselves. They too rely on these platforms, as an essential component of their economic livelihood. It’s no wonder that Meta’s latest moves have creators and small business owners on edge. They’re fearful of the opaque processes and absence of support when they experience issues with their accounts.
One impacted peer, here represented as EM, expressed anxiety about the lack of ability to contact Meta for help with vulnerabilities.
“It makes it impossible to get hold of anyone to speak to, by email, chat or phone.” – EM
Likewise, users such as RM and EM report an increasing sense of despair. Their lack of a formal appeals process for deletions of accounts only adds to the aggravation. It’s a choice that many young entrepreneurs have to make. Facing few viable alternatives, they find it hard to sustain their businesses without their vital social media channels.
RM continues to advocate for a reinstatement of his accounts that were deleted. He underscores just how important it is that we tackle these challenges, particularly for people who depend on digital platforms to earn a living. These deletions are not only chilling social media interactions. They endanger the bedrock of early-stage funding on which so many young companies depend.