I have confirmation that I am not the only person being affected, but let me quickly summarize anyways: By far the largest reason keeping me from uninstalling Instagram is its chat functionality. Sure, endlessly scrolling reels is nice and all. But on the other hand, it is liquifying my brain over time and I’d rather that happened at a slightly lower pace. Unfortunately, I’m afraid of losing access to Instagram’s chat. Not because Instagram is a good platform for direct communication in any way. That couldn’t be any farther from reality. To be precise, it is the social circle I have built up that’s only existing within Instagram. You have to understand, my Instagram handle is a personal identifier with significantly lower sensitivity than my phone number or my email address. Well, Instagram also wins over email possibly because I’m not 50. And it’s the same for most people in my generation. When we meet new people in temporary situations, like let’s say on a vacation or at a festival, our Instagram identities feel like the best option to share. That’s been my policy for a few years now. So by now I have a significant amount of contacts I feel at least slightly attached to that I don’t want risking giving them up by deleting Instagram. I guess this alone is already a cautionary tale. But it’s not the main topic I wanted to write about here today.

One thing that I recently witnessed on Instagram with one of my vacation-acquaintances was the following: Someone had made an account with a handle resembling hers and sent friend-invites to many of her followers, including me. This impersonation account was suggesting to be my friend’s “secret second OnlyFans promotion account”. It had a link to the OF account and all (at least I assume the link lead there, I didn’t click it). Oof. Another reminder that being a woman on the internet sucks for all my fellow dudes out there. But it comes worse: The profile picture was actually her real face with a body standing near a pool, only dressed in a bikini. I must assume this picture was created using GenAI based on the few publicly available photos of her. It’s frightening how easy the whole process must have been for the person behind the fake account. And yet, this could really have been very damaging to my friend’s reputation. She works as a teacher.

I must also admit that in retrospect my reaction was probably not what it should have been. My first thought was not to immediately doubt the validity of this second account. I think my initial thoughts were more along the lines of “huh, interesting choice - good for her I suppose, making some money on the side”. Only at the third or fourth thought I started wondering if this wasn’t a bit too risky given her day job. Then, slowly realizing that this may be an imposter account, I contemplated sending my friend a message. Something simple like “hey, this you?”. But I didn’t even do that. The only real excuse I can give is that I was probably on the loo and cold-DMing her felt like having some friction to it. Later I saw a story on her real account where she was letting people know that this alt account was not hers. Only then I sent her a message that I was feeling for her and that I felt sorry this happened to her. I did not get a message back. Maybe I shouldn’t have texted. Or maybe her head was occupied with other things at that particular moment.

This was not the first time I wasn’t happy with my reaction in hind-sight. Another (female) vacation acquaintance of mine had her account hacked some months earlier. For a period of time (2 days or so) her account would suddenly promote some crypto broker or currency or get-rich-quick scheme or whatever. And here also my first reaction was to roll my eyes about her trying to make some extra money at the expense of others. I do think all things crypto are a scam. But it didn’t occur to me that she might have been hacked. Instead, I unfollowed her account. I still was friends with the account of her partner which is where I eventually saw the whole story’s explanation. Now I am too ashamed to send her another follow request again.