Instagram Verification Nightmares Endured by Celebrities

Though they appear to be glamorous and amazing, celebrities’ lives are far from perfect as they have their own shares of nightmares. These range from overzealous fans turned stalkers to PR blunders and social media struggles. In recent times though, many of the problems faced by celebrities have been tied to their digital presence especially on social media platforms. Instagram verification, for instance, has brought celebrities much grief in many ways throughout the years.  Many of the verification problems celebrities faced were related to access to verification and admin level decisions made by Instagram and almost all have been short-lived.

Verification Dearth
Instagram verification has been causing nightmare for celebrities from before its existence. Before Instagram verification became a thing, celebrities struggled to protect the integrity of their brands on the platform. As a result celebrity powerhouses like Rihanna found themselves forced to deactivate their accounts to ward off imposters.
Thankfully, Instagram introduced verification badges for celebrities in December of 2014. This allowed the elites of the world to protect their brands.

Instagram Verification Paused
Like the rest of us, celebrities are often at the mercy of the management teams at the helm of social media platforms. Decisions made by platform impact all of their users. And sometimes these decisions result in inconveniences for users.
Back in 2015, when Instagram announced that it would stop the practice of verifying accounts, many celebrities were furious. And with good reason: without verification, celebrities are exposed to identity theft as imposters’ pages won’t be easily distinguishable from theirs.  As a result, imposters would be able to tap into celebrities’ brands and target audience and wreak havoc. The reason behind the social media platform’s move seemed to be legal issues. Many speculated that a potential legal conflict with Twitter was the specific cause.
An alternative that many celebrities were forced to resort to is the use of their other verified social media pages. By linking their Instagram accounts to their verified social media pages on other platforms, celebrities were able to establish some measure of authentication. Relief came when verification was eventually resumed by Instagram.
But many celebrities, especially those who had not quite made it to superstardom as yet, met upon another roadblock- Instagram was only offering verification through its specialist team and targeting the big names in entertainment. This meant that many budding stars struggled to attain verification on Instagram.
In 2018, when Instagram decided to make verification more accessible, B-listers and other celebrities could breathe a sigh of relief. Mini celebrities and influencers finally had an accessible route to verification.
 
The Instagram Purge
Another Instagram related nightmare endured by celebrities was the purge that Instagram underwent in 2014. The platform did a thorough ‘house cleaning’ removing millions of accounts that were fake. This inadvertently led to celebrities’ follower counts falling drastically. And for those celebrities who hinged their authentication on fan numbers, this spelt disaster… at least in terms of their follower numbers. Celebrity powerhouses like Beyonce, Taylor Swift, Selena Gomez and Ariana Grande saw dramatic plunges in the number of followers on their accounts
The purge was good for some celebrities though, as the dip in followers for others meant an improvement in their positions on the Instagram charts of fame. Kim Kardashian was perhaps the ultimate example of this as, despite losing 1.3 million followers, she dethroned Justin Beiber (who lost over 3.5 million followers to the purge) as the celebrity at the top of Instagram’s follower powerhouse.
Despite the verification nightmares experienced by celebrities over the years, Instagram has remained a popular social media platform for them and their fans alike.

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