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Someone has stolen my Instagram account

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Re: Someone has stolen my Instagram account

#131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> when will people learn that Facebook, Google et al do not care at all about individual users? When will people learn, not just Facebook, Google et al, but no large company cares about individual users? Coca-Cola, Delta Air Lines, Ford, Unilever, Visa, Walmart do not care about individual users. Not because all of them are bad, but simply because they physically cannot deal with every complaint. Even worse, when the…

It's a little difference with Facebook and Google, because unlike the other companies you mentioned, users are not the customers of Facebook and Google -- advertisers are. There is very little incentive to make their users happy when their users are not paying for the service.

> There is very little incentive to make their users happy when their users are not paying for the service

This is plainly obviously wrong.

When users are not happy, they leave the service, and advertizers stop paying.

Even more, companies are much more afraid to lose users than to lose advertizers. Companies can live years without advertizers (by borrowing money for example or by burning reserves), but if a company lost it's users, the company is finished.

Re: Someone has stolen my Instagram account

#132
post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, thank God for that, because with that kind of authoritative observation we can close the books on this one permanently. Dodged a bullet there, didn’t we? Pitchforks down, everyone, ‘mrits has this one in hand. This is an extremely well-known phenomenon. This is the third time I’ve heard of it happening to an OG. It’s pretty common knowledge that the right teams inside Instagram look the other way; what’s a user…

It's not an extremely well known phenomenon at all. Asserting things while being overly emotional and aggressive isn't evidence. So: Citation needed.

So are you asking for screenshots from my email of the thread where everyone came together to agree on the terms and execution of the conspiracy, or?

Also, sarcasm isn’t an emotion. I’m English, so perhaps consider that my culture of challenging someone is different from yours before projecting whatever big bad horrible emotional troll hurt your feelings once. Facebook is literally more employees than even populate this dreadful site, but someone says “my roommate’s brother’s uncle by blood works there and I’ve never heard of it so it’s plainly false” and we’re all to just fawn over the precious insight?

I’m sorry, I’ll try again: thanks, ‘mrats. Very brave.

Re: Someone has stolen my Instagram account

#135
post #11

Is this hearsay or is there proof? Aside from @danny saying it was from an fb employee, there’s nothing else to indicate it was, and I wouldn’t trust the word of a hacker/recipient of a hacked account.

I think the biggest 'proof' there is that the twitter account states they haven't received any 2FA requests. Assuming we're taking this as truth then:

1.) Somehow MFA got disabled on the account (or avoided altogether)

2.) Could've got SIM swapped. However this seems rather unlikely, as there are no other reported IoCs which point toward SIM swapping (i.e. can't call or text).

> "I wouldn’t trust the word of a hacker/recipient of a hacked account."

I wouldn't discount it. This isn't some APT that ran a Stuxnet operation. It's someone who allegedly exploited a system to get an og account. The whole reason people want og accounts is because they're a status symbol in some circles.

It's quite likely that someone associated with stealing an og is an immature braggart. So they may do things immature braggarts would do... like talk about their TTP.

Re: Someone has stolen my Instagram account

#136

I had this happen to one of my accounts, it got taken over by someone, I don’t know how, but I moved heaven and earth to reach someone at Instagram to no avail. It confirmed in my mind that the employees of Facebook and Instagram could not care less about any of us unless we are making the money.

Well, duh? Does any company care about people who aren’t carrying the bags of money?

As far as I’ve seen - companies only care about the whales because any other mentality is a money losing one.

Re: Someone has stolen my Instagram account

#137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is absolutely a legal theory, and that is fraud. If you claim to be someone you are not, and someone relies on your false claim to their detriment, you are liable.

My point was whether Facebook itself committed a crime and whether the account holder had any recourse against Facebook. To me it doesn't look like it - the username remains the property of FB and they are free to do anything they want with it.

It might take an open-minded judge to accept this, but attorneys often fall back to common-law negligence when there are no stronger legal theories to rely on.

All the elements of negligence seem to be here, except probably for duty of care. A judge would have to find that Facebook owes a duty of care to its users to protect the integrity of its identities, and that Facebook breached that duty.

I can foresee Facebook and other information service providers fighting vigorously against such a legal conclusion, but maybe it's just the kind of law we need.

Re: Someone has stolen my Instagram account

#138
post #16

I think this is indicative of the biggest problem we have had with social media: there is no legalism here, just "codes of conduct" that companies and users both willfully ignore. If your handle gets sold by some facebook employee to a rich kid in LA, what recourse do you have? I don't know what laws this would break (maybe some broad definition of fraud? I Am Not A Lawyer) so it's not like this person has a slam dun…

If the new owner is imposter trying to be the old owner, it would be identity theft and fraud. If it's just giving the handle to someone else there is nothing. If you don't pay for a account, you don't usually own it unless there is something I'm missing.

If you want to own your identity in the internet, get a website you own and don't rely on shady social-media networks that give you something free.

Re: Someone has stolen my Instagram account

#139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An interesting aspect to this story is that although there's no real evidence that a Facebook employee was involved, it still seems like a believable explanation to many readers including many commenters here. If a company's customer support is so bad that no one can tell the difference between being hacked and being abused by a rogue employee, does it actually matter what happened? I guess that it matters to the ori…

Users here will believe any conspiracy theory so that's not really a high bar. I'm serious. There was that massive 2000 comment thread the other month about some big company doing something evil and then it turned out they didn't do it. Everyone who was right and informed in the original thread was greyed out by users here.

Maybe that’s because 90% of the time it turns out the company did do it?

I’d be interested in knowing what thread that was though.

Re: Someone has stolen my Instagram account

#140
post #130

I work at FB and I assure you if an FB employee is involved they'll be fired right away and there'll be a lot records so they cannot escape.

I can understand why someone would need a throwaway to criticise their employer; using one to praise them is a little odd, however.

Maybe they've got other stuff on their main account they don't want their employer to see.
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