Facebook took down hundreds of Instagram accounts connected to username hacking.
On Thursday, Facebook Inc took down hundreds of Instagram accounts that were hacked and sold for their high-value usernames — including the accounts of people behind the said activity.
According to a Facebook spokesperson, the people engaged in the said practice were well-known figures in a community known as the “OGUsers”, who traded desirable usernames for popular websites from Twitter Inc to Netflix for clout and money.
The usernames — which could sell for tens of thousands of dollars — were often short words prized for their scarcity, like @food or letters like @B.
READ ALSO: Instagram Eyes Stopping Users From Sharing Posts From Feed To Stories
Social media companies — including Instagram — have rules against the sale of social media accounts.
The people accused of participating in a major Twitter hack last year — when a slew of VIP accounts were hijacked — also had ties to the said practice and the online OGUsers forum.
GMA News Online reported that an administrator of the OGUsers site didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment as they had previously said that the site banned trading accounts acquired through hacking.
It was the first time Facebook had shared its enforcement actions about the said activity, though it said that it had been removing accounts for the said practice on an ongoing basis.
TikTok and Twitter also said that they had recently taken action against OGUsers for breaking the rules.
For more news and updates, you may feel free to visit this site more often. You may also visit Newspapers.ph via our official Facebook page and YouTube channel.