12 years of content gone: Singapore influencer in tears after Instagram deactivates her account for posting this video
PHOTO: Instagram/Polkadopeeee
PUBLISHED ONJanuary 14, 2023 3:57 AMByMelissa Teo [UPDATE: JAN 15]
Vanessa Tam updated on her Instagram Stories on Saturday (Jan 14) that her account has been restored.
She wrote: "I am back! It feels like I woke up from my nightmare. Thank you to all these angels who offered to step forward to help me selflessly. I truly appreciate everything and everyone who shared my video and left me encouraging comments and DMs too."
She explained that someone working in Meta escalated her case to the legal department and an hour later, she got an email from Instagram saying they disabled her account my mistake.
"This is truly a lesson for me and I just wanna spread awareness that you cannot be complacent and you have to be careful what you post on the internet. Read up on some community guidelines so you don't violate it in the future," she added.
"Most importantly, have back-ups of your memories and everything that's close to your heart."
For 12 years, influencer Vanessa Tam, also known as Polkadope, painstakingly built up her career on Instagram.
But overnight, all of her precious content disappeared after her account was suddenly suspended and deactivated.
In a Reel uploaded to a temporary Instagram account on Thursday (Jan 12), a tearful Tam shared why her account was banned.
"So 110k of my Instagram followers [were] gone overnight. 12 years of my hard work on Instagram was gone overnight," she said emotionally.
The 29-year-old explained that she had posted a video of herself buying Chinese New Year clothes for her grandmother and the designs on the blouse, which were similar to a luxury brand, were visible.
And that had apparently violated Instagram community guidelines, presumably over concerns that it might be a counterfeit item.
"I honestly didn't think much about it," said Tam, adding that it was the typical kind of clothing you'd see grandmothers and mothers purchase at wet market clothing stalls.
According to the Instagram guidelines that popped up on her IG account, she had apparently violated community guidelines for "selling counterfeit goods or promoting counterfeit goods".
"My intention was just to share my grandmother's joy on my Instagram story and unknowingly, I violated some community guidelines," said Tam, adding that no warnings were given and there was no help or support team she could contact.
Tam also showed the clip that got her account banned.
To prevent her new account from getting suspended as well, she censored the blouse and edited the caption.
"Happy, I'm so happy," her grandmother had sung in the video as she held onto the blouse.
In the video captions, Tam also shared that her grandmother had finally found clothes that she liked.
Reflecting on the incident, Tam said that she's come to realise that everything on Instagram does not truly belong to the user.
"It can be taken away from you just like that," Tam reflected, adding that her whole online personality is her full-time job.
AsiaOne has reached out to Tam for more details.
Careful what you post on IG
According to Instagram, accounts that don't follow community guidelines "may be disabled".
The social media platform's terms and imprints also add that users aren't allowed to post someone else's private or confidential information without permission or do anything that violates someone else's rights.
This includes intellectual property rights like copyright infringement, trademark infringement, and counterfeit or pirated goods.
In September last year, a Chinese influencer, Wang Can, was banned from his social media account after posting a video of himself eating a live wasp.
He had over 560,000 followers on video-sharing platform Douyin, and he was banned from the site after his wasp-eating video went viral.
The man suffered extremely swollen lips and he had difficulty swallowing after filming the video. He then claimed that the video had attracted more than 100,000 viewers and he plans to repeat the stunt again.
His account was shut down right before the second stunt.
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