Our Instagram account was permanently disabled by Instagram last night. In a moment, our most active online community of 17,800 people disappeared, along with years of beautiful travel moments, Caspian baby videos, and the hundreds of private conversations we hold constantly with friends.
The only way we will ever get our @hourlesslife Instagram account back is if a real person at Meta steps in to help us with a manual action. This is unlikely, but not impossible.
EDIT, March 22, 2026: We are back! After about three weeks, Instagram acknowledged they’d made a mistake and restored our account. We’ll see you at @hourlesslife.
EDIT, Feb. 25, 2026: For the time being, we have created a new Instagram account at @hourless_life. We truly appreciate you connecting with us there. It will more than likely become our new, permanent account as we pick up these pieces and rebuild.
Why did this happen?
We don’t know for sure why this happened, but we can guess. It is most likely due to our changing geographical location. In Paris last month, our account was flagged for verification and we were locked out. I did facial recognition and we waited. The same night, access was restored after Instagram’s review process was complete.
A little more than a month later, last night, a similar thing happened. This time on another continent. I immediately did facial recognition. Instagram also prompted me to add my phone number, so they could send a code to WhatsApp. I immediately did this, and the review process began.
But Instagram responded this way via email:
These processes are performed by bots and automated processes. When we were flagged, I was sending a private message to our newest follower, thanking them for connecting with us.
If it were a real person doing the flagging or reviewing our account afterwards, then our account would not have been disabled.
Unfortunately, Meta cannot employ enough real people to keep up with the demands of the platform. We know that.
We’re not sure what happens next. But we want to let our community know. It is heartbreaking to be immediately out of touch with so many friends, especially our newest friends in Africa who have been welcoming and supportive of our drive around the world. We were also about to announce an exciting brand partnership–losing this platform also impacts the faithful sponsors of our journey.
If you know anyone at Meta who can help us reverse this decision, then please let us know using our contact form.
Our family mission statement is Love. Explore. Study. Share. This obstacle will not stop us from sharing this wonderful world with you.
Thank you for being part of our journey.
-B
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