If you are on Instagram, you have probably been bombarded by photos like this…
These have long been a thing, and there is a collective sigh whenever a maker gets hit with what amounts to a virtual Instagram Death Sentence.
This time it is different, the scale is completely unprecedented, scores of makers got clobbered all at once.
People will appeal, the appeal will get denied, and ultimately fade away on the platform as they get throttled to to point on non-viability.
It isn’t just makers, NJ Steel Baron got hit.
Meta (Instagram’s parent company) apparently instituted an new algorithm to flag “weapons”, and the community has taken a tremendous hit.
This is not good, and I wish I had an answer. I have reached out to AKTI and Knife Rights, as these are really the only groups with the sort of high level connections to influence people who may be able to help. I have not yet heard back, but will keep you posted.
If you are a maker who has been hit with a ban, please leave your website information in a comment below. I am going to put together a post sharing the websites of affected folks to put out on Black Friday. That is something proactive that we can do to help.