It appears that Instagram (Facebook) is on the banning campaign again.  This is taking money out of the hands of content creators, most often without warning.

We are seeing this happening more and more across the traditional social media circles.

In fact, here is a quote that sums it all up.

>“It is becoming increasingly challenging to build a business where your sole revenue comes in from **third-party social-media platforms**,” social media expert and commentator Kris Ruby. 

Isn't this the truth?  

https://fdn.gsmarena.com/imgroot/news/18/03/instagram-timeline-changes/-728/gsmarena_001.jpg
<center>[Source](https://www.gsmarena.com/instagram_announces_new_changes_to_the_timeline_based_on_feedback-news-30245.php)</center>

Social media companies are whacking accounts all over the place.

At the heart of Instagram's closing of accounts was the posting of memes.  Many accounts generate a lot of money doing this.

One such person was 15 year old Ben (last name not given).  He was generating $4,000 a month through his Instagram accounts.  The multiple accounts were used to pass around memes.

Ben tried to log on only to find he was locked out of a number of accounts.  Of course, the usual "violations of our terms and services" was given.

Memes cause quite a stir since, often, the pictures used are done so without giving credit to the content creator.  Ben claims he was not in this camp since he was a content creator in the past so he knows what it is like to have your work used without being cited.  

While $4,000 a month seems like a lot of money, according to Ruby, Ben is a bit player.  

Here is the rest of the quote:

>Compared to some, Ben was small potatoes. Ruby said some of these frivolous meme accounts could earn up to hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/instagrams-purge-of-meme-accounts-cost-this-teenager-his-only-income-of-4000-a-month-2019-08-07?mod=mw_theo_homepage

Of course, Instagram (Facebook) is taking the high road on this.  They are the noble ones, of course, protecting the property of the original content creators.

I have just one question: is Facebook going to give the money back that those accounts generated from its advertising?  

Regardless of what Facebook does on that end, this is what we see taking place out there.  This is the opening that is being afforded the Steem ecosystem.  We are seeing thousands of people having their accounts purged by these social media companies.  As Ruby said, having your business at the mercy of a third party social media company is risky.

Steem is the solution to that.  We see a platform where earners can come and not have their accounts closed.  There is no purging going on either for political or economic purposes.  Without a third party entity to close accounts, people are free to progress without the fear of a centralized entity closing them down.

I do not see these mega-corporations changing what they are doing.  This is going to continue as pressure is exerted upon them.  A case could be made they have an agenda.  I mean seriously, in the Facebook ecosystem, what does 30 pages of memes really represent?  It is nothing compared to the entire platform.

Yet they decided these people violated their "terms of service".  Perhaps, in this instance, it is truly the case.  However, with these companies, you can never tell.  With a blanket purge, how do they know who did or did not have permission to use the content?  To them, it doesn't matter anyway.

The more of this we see, the greater the story of decentralization becomes.  Over time, we need to leverage this into a gain for these platforms.  Since the traditional social media entities chose their path, it is time for the decentralized systems to start making themselves known.  As our applications start to get more users, we can count on the word spreading.  This will pull in more people which should only increase the process.

Sometimes our enemy can be our greatest ally.

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