Hello!

I have contemplated writing this post for the last two days now.
Some of you may already know this, but for those who do not well, my Instagram page has vanished completely on Christmas day around 3 pm pst! My Instagram “KouzounasKitchen“ is nowhere to be found. Not only did this come as a HUGE shock to me, but this is devastating!!
I started Instagram back in 2012 being 1 of the first Greek American accounts that had the first 4 letters”Kouz” on there. Now everyone has “Kouzina” or something along those lines.
I posted food photography, most of which is on this very blog. I loved to see how my food photos drastically changed from 2012 and to present day. (That means I was growing and learning how to adapt to food photography.)

I did many shoutouts for Instagram users and giveaways! Just in 2020, I think we did the most giveaways ever. I truly love helping people and enjoy doing so! My father always made people smile and laugh with his unique sense of humor, and we have been working together the past years as a father-daughter duo to make fun content! Tonight I explained to my dad what happened to the account and he said “Krystinaki mou, you keep going!”

The Crap Went Down

I did a woodfired pizza video with Nestora, a few weeks ago. We shared this video on my Instagram page via stories and on the reel. All of a sudden a friend of mine in LA sends me a message saying the video was flagged as “sensitive content” which made no sense! Instagram never fixed that, rather they left the “sensitive content” on my story and that made me look bad. I did report this to them, and no reply of course. I then message them again and started asking them why I have had nothing but issues with my feed posts not loading or stories not loading. It escalated to not being able to see my comments on each post, and then Christmas day I get an error that my account has been disabled and I need to enter a code to make sure it is me?! You can imagine all the emotions going on in my mind right?? I run a business on my Instagram, so this is something of a nightmare. With almost 13.6 K followers, content from 2012, and very HARD WORK in every post, I lost it. It has now been over 3 days and 6 hours counting, and I have not seen my account back up. I’m definitely losing hope here.

Many friends reached out to me and asked if I unfollowed them or what on earth happened to my page? See, it shows that I unfollowed everyone! That means 7,000 people I follow think I unfollowed them on Instagram when I didn’t!
Heck yes, I am upset and even more so furious that knowing I am a good person, and I did the best I could do to make my page successful! My question to Instagram is why???!!

Questions Questions

Why is it okay to ban or disable my food page without any warning or notice but you let naked people post whatever they want and you let BULLIES bully??? Is that okay?

Many pages I have seen are not within the “Instagram terms and policies” but they are still up and running. I know accounts who bank on paid followers, and then I know accounts who are all organic. I have spent tons of money on Instagram especially during the pandemic, to help promote my books. I never got anything from the paid promotions. It’s best you do everything on your own, and be creative. 👈👈
I do not know what to think reader. Many questions are running through my mind. Was I hacked? Did a certain someone on Instagram not like my page and want to see me fail? Maybe?!

I was doing really good with my holiday orders that came in, the last month. Working very hard to make aprons, fulfill catering orders globally, and fulfill book orders.

The “report” button.

Anyone can “report” your page to be sneaky, so do keep that in mind. I really do not understand the report button because I feel many people abuse it. If some page I follow posts sensitive content or something I do not like, I just hit unfollow. Simple as that folks!
I stay on my path, so I do not bother people. If anything, I felt my page brought joy and happiness to my followers with my fun food posts, and especially my Greek father’s humor. So whatever the case maybe, you are taking away the joy and happiness to them! This is very UNFAIR! The least Instagram can do to a seasoned user is to provide customer support.

Why am I coming forward to explain my experience?

I think it is important for someone in my shoes or someone who wants to start an Instagram page to be well aware of this! You took away my dedicated posts, and the constant love and drive I have for social media. That is unacceptable and very UNFAIR. I don’t want people to feel bad for me at all, rather I want people to be aware that this can happen to anyone.

I did reach out to Facebook business support and that was nothing but you need to wait 24 hours. Took me 30 minutes to talk to a Facebook rep, and that got me nowhere.
I then tried to fill out this Instagram form and it made me upload a business license showing I am in fact the owner of Kouzounas Kitchen page. Then the error read “confirm your account” well Instagram I can’t do that can I?! I can continue to write many things about Instagram, but I am not here to crap on them. Rather I am here to take a STANCE, and show everyone that I am a fighter. I will fight this, and make sure many of my followers and friends understand what has transpired is unacceptable.

Life isn’t fair I understand, but someone has to step up and try to change a 6 billion dollar company and ask for CUSTOMER SUPPORT VIA PHONE & FAIRNESS! If you want your user Instagram to abide by your rules, then you should also abide and be fair.

I did make a new “back up page” for now and if you would like to join me please do so here. If you have experienced these issues on Instagram, please do share your thoughts. Thank you for letting me rant, and share my experience.
I want to thank all the beautiful friends who have supported me and helped me fight this! Gina, Vince, Margie, Athina, David, Nicol, Kouzini, and so many others! I am grateful to you all.
I will keep going forward no matter what, and I have new projects coming soon. If I learned anything from this experience it is that I am a strong person, and I won’t give up my passions.

With love,
Krystina
Kouzounas Kitchen