Instagram has waged an unending battle against everything from bullying to toxic influencers to fake accounts and it looks like the social media platform is turning its laser sites now on those ubiquitous meme accounts that repost memes endlessly – and make a fortune while doing so, apparently.
These accounts are not small – some of them tally up in the millions in terms of followers and have posts with like ratios that are off the charts – but the reposting of content the account doesn’t own plus monetizing that content (which is sometimes inappropriate) is a formula for a ban according to Instagram’s terms of service.
What is most surprising about this story from FStoppers is that some of these meme accounts were making tons of money for their owners with one former account holder bemoaning the loss of his income that “paid for his college education” according to the website.
FStoppers theorizes that the accounts were either violating the terms of service on Instagram by reposting content, monetizing it, and maybe even posting content that did meet their community guidelines but also the situation might involve selling followers and/or working with employees inside Instagram to game the system. Since Instagram hasn’t really given a specific reason for this action, we’re all left guessing as to the “why” but there’s no doubt about the how.
As far as we know, the banned accounts probably won’t be coming back. So pour one out for the guy making tons of money off of memes.
What do you think? Should accounts that repost other accounts’ content be banned? How about the concept of making money off of memes? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
Don’t forget to check out our other news articles on Light Stalking by clicking here.
