This is a great lesson on the fragility of building businesses on private, centralized, and proprietary platforms.

It is a lesson I wish I learned a lot earlier in my career.

This is the way of the world. Unaccountable mega-corporations, the feudal lords of the modern world.

Perhaps channel your energy to building something else more stable, and stop adding value to Meta (because they really dgaf about you)

On top of providing a better developer experience compared to Meta's ultra-locked and limited APIs, they aren't subject to the whims of a giant faceless company that can kill your product for no apparent reason with no chances of appeal.

Especially if you're doing these projects for folks in the developing world. Let's not lock them in proprietary American spyware like the whole West has already done :) from a user's perspective, if things are done properly, it'll just be a matter of installing another app.

And btw using a Matrix server with a WhatsApp bridge could also be a temporary solution to bypass the ban. But I haven't tested it with business accounts.

The real customer service for any Meta-related service is their legal department.

I've worked for a marketing firm whose clients (High End Fashion Industry in EU) were very prone to straddling the line regarding the Instagram ToS. If an account was disabled by some automatic trigger the lawyers would write/fax Meta asking for the account restoration, usually with no fuss on their side.

As you may guess, it wasn't exactly cheap. No idea if a lawyer may do something like that for you inexpensively or pro-bono given the nature of your app.

My Google maps account was blocked also when traveling, but fortunately after several weeks I was able to get that one back.

With Instagram though I just had to make a new account. I also have a Meta Business account (business.facebook.com) and the Instagram account was linked there. The Facebook business account, pages were never blocked though, just the Instagram one.

Unfortunately after a few months I just had to accept it and make a new account. I hope you have more luck, but I assume it's the same with any Meta products. There is no support you can contact, no way to get redress. If it's possible, try to avoid using Meta products to build anything. I understand that's not always possible though, I run a bakery and absolutely must have both Google Maps and Instagram, much as I wish I didn't.

I understand the spirit of this post but this makes it sound like HN is FAANG's support forum. Maybe as a last resort it is, but too on the nose for me.