GILGIT BALTISTAN: Muhammad Shiraz, Pakistan’s youngest vlogger from Gilgit-Baltistan, has suffered a major setback as his Instagram account with 2.1 million followers has been suspended.
The news was announced by his father, Muhammad Taqi, in a video posted on Shiraz’s YouTube channel, Shirazi Village Vlogs, which has 1.76 million subscribers.
According to Taqi, they received a sudden email in the middle of the night at around 1 AM on January 27th, notifying them of the suspension later the account disappeared, throwing the family into distress.
The suspension, according to Taqi, has made a huge dent in their family finances, as this was their primary source of income out of the paid promotions conducted on Instagram.
He speculated that the reason behind this setback might be Instagram’s stringent policies against child influencers.
Additionally, the YouTube algorithm has restricted their content as it falls under the ‘Made for Kids’ category, limiting its reach. Taqi informed that the views for Shiraz on the YouTube platform have dropped tremendously, due to the algorithm, which confines content created by kids to child audiences only.
In a follow-up video, Taqi expressed his disappointment and loss of hope in recovering the suspended Instagram account. However, he mentioned that a friend is currently working on the issue in an attempt to restore it.
The six-year-old vlogger, along with his sister Muskaan, has risen to fame at a very tender age making wholesome content showing off their village and simple people.
Shiraz’s innocent charm and genuine display of rural life in northern Pakistan have endeared him to many, garnering quite a large following on social media. He shares very original perspectives of the world and displays his surroundings very sincerely, despite his broken Urdu.
Shiraz’s father has advised fellow creators making playground videos with children to incorporate adult elements to circumvent any restrictions of similar nature.
