This is a thread from October 2018, but it reads just like one from June 2019.
Which means that there is always a tournament where Instagram tries to outwit those who outwit their quality-despising activity-supporting algorithm.
Because of this algorithm and the fact that most accounts that are on top (all of the celebrity and brand accounts, for example) use botting and fake likes/followers and IG doesn't do anything about it as they want this big accounts.
At the same time, this accepted botting and faking diminishes the chance of quality accounts to become successful in a human, non-bot way, to almost zero. Try to use IG by just posting quality with great captions and only normal activity 30minutes - 45 minutes/day. You will go nowhere.
As long IG allows some "power users" to swindle, all the other users who want to become successful, have to upgrade to those tools even if they don't want to and would, in their time, rather create good posts with great images and captions.
It's this setup where Instagram cuts into its own flesh, and which may, in the end, lead to its downfall. As long as not every user is treated the same, a system is corrupt, and in corrupt systems you cannot play by the official rules, as they are worthless.
Because botting is ingrained into the IG success formula, it will always be here, and the fight is just to find out WHICH KIND of botting IG is favorable to, and which is not.
(fake followers, for example, are totally out now, and, I believe, fake likes as well, and many of the blocks may actually hit those robot accounts that sell likes and/or follows)
Until Instagram finds a way to judge quality (which is, with the current algorithms, not possible) this game will continue as they need the bots for increased activity and they need the child accounts for higher active user count.
The challenge is to find out what Instagram actually wants to change. It's not "all bots must go" - because then IG would shrink to 25% of its size and the activity would be down 90%. And imagine all those ads that are shown to bot accounts and that IG couldn't charge for any more.
At the moment it is a fight against proxies it seems, not against bots. What kind of proxies does IG still accept and what can we learn out of this distinction?
