My Instagram account has been disabled and deleted. By Instagram.
A few weeks ago, my account was hacked by people in Turkey. I could see they were in Turkey because 'login attempts' tags the location. My profile picture was changed to a blonde lady I do not know, and my bio said "I feel hot tonight... Come fit me in...xoxox" stuff like that. When I got my account back I was following many new accounts which were men in various stages of undress taking classless selfies. Following all of the IG recommendations to protect the account, I set up 2-factor authentication, changed the password, used a complex password, the whole lot. I was still having little glitchy issues as the hackers had made me follow a lot of dodgy accounts and people. I had cleared most of them out, but a few accounts still popped up. I was constantly tagged by spam accounts that posted in Arabic. I blocked the account and the tagger as soon as they came up. I changed my profile settings to private and had to approve anyone who followed me. This also helped to weed out some creepies and weirds that seemed linked to the Turkish account hack. The few posts I had put up since the hacking was some of newly finished knitwear, a beautiful vintage beaded cardigan, my pointe shoes for ballet, and an 80s blouse with killer sleeves. Nothing to write home about, that's for sure. Last night I was scrolling through my feed, double-tapping cute retro styles, #1940sknitting, my usual stuff, then went to bed. There was nothing peculiar. After I woke up this morning, I always check my messages, emails, IG and Facebook just for any updates. Helps me wake up a bit so I don't fall back asleep. Denied. Your account has been disabled for violating our terms. Hmm. Okay. This is weird because at no point did a 2-factor authentication come through, nor email. And I have been asleep all night away from my phone. I tried logging in on a desktop machine as IG suggested and got user not found. This was with searching my mobile number, email address, user name and full name. I had been deleted. There is no way I can get in touch with IG apart from logging an 'My account has been disabled' check form. Nothing has come from this. The password cannot be reset because none of my user information can be found. I could not request a download of what had been shared on my account because my user information has been deleted. I no longer exist. IG was for me a place where I could put information, resources and references for my sewing and knitting projects. I was never political, I was never rude, I only tried to support other people in their sewing, knitting and personal adventures. I've made some great online friends through IG. I feel sad, and very disappointed. I think that is mainly the feeling of the loss of all that information. It was a way for me to share my passion and hobbies with other likeminded people. I don't know what other steps I could have taken to protect myself. At this stage, I do not know if I will be back.
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AuthorKnitter. Home seamstress. Dance Teacher. Archives
April 2023
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