Instagram Account Banned

This was resolved as simply a mistake on the part of Instagram, but the hint below might help someone.

Can't get a texted code number from Instagram? You might need to unblock one of their numbers on your phone. In my case, unblocking 326-65 allowed me to get the code I needed to continue with their horribly hostile broken system. 

I'm 'a computer guy'. I have been on social systems in cyberspace since before the worldwide web. Since, even, before the term 'cyberspace' came and went in popular geek parlance. When younger, long ago, I could be a bit sharp and sarcastic online, but I never intended to be mean. Before the WWW came along I was already kinder and gentler. I registered my first domain name in 1987, and for a while did websites for people starting in 1999. I have been a citizen in cyberspace longer than most of the people who have seized control of it have been alive. I have been a kind, mannerly, and 'community-guidelines' friendly citizen of the web since its very beginning. I don't transgress in online communities and any community managers that believe otherwise are mistaken. It's on them. If there is something objectionable associated with my account online it is their security breaking down, not my manners. 

I was invited to review an Instagram post on the account of an important public person. By co-incidence, my account, which I hardly ever access was banned by Instagram. I could not log on and was given the option to enter an appeal. However, the system demanded that I put in a code that it would send by SMS text to my phone for me to even register my protest. I tried a number of times unsuccessfully to get the code sent, but it never arrived. After a few attempts it said I had used up my chances for SMS and had to wait for 24 hours to try again. I waited. I tried again, still without luck. 

The system offered no other way to protest the ban or to even contact Instagram. I tried to get them on Twitter/X without luck. I logged in to Meta to try, tried to use Facebook to log in, all to no avail. 

My posting on X prompted replies by accounts clearly charging people money to fix this issue. Having my time wasted and paying for the privilege was 'a bridge too far' for me. 

Instagram's system is ridiculously hostile to just about anyone, it would seem. For ordinary people who have invested their time in their account it must be a nightmare. 

I went looking for a solution to the defective SMS situation and found something that seemed an improbable fix. Apparently it is impossible to get the SMS or any indication of what went wrong if their number is blocked. It is also possible that, for whatever reason, you have blocked the number. I have no idea what happened for me to block that number, but it was blocked on my phone. 

The number in question is 326-65. Unblocking that number allowed me to receive the code so that my appeal could continue. 

Because I have been something of an insider in many places, am a technical person myself, and have friends and associates that are technical, I have been able to deal with various frustrations over the years. However, I note with alarm that the stranglehold large incumbents have on the world's networks is beginning to make me, one of the people who designed and built parts of the infrastructure, just another supplicant at the mercy of a merciless oligarchic bureaucracy. 

I believe that there is, in the medium term of about five years, a way that the citizens of the world can free themselves from what is rapidly becoming control by an increasingly hostile and tyrannical minority. I am working on aspects of this. For now, though, I would say to people to get off the sidelines, get involved, and remember your neighbor is not the enemy.