Instagram, Twitter, TikTok remove accounts tied to username hacking

Team Udayavani, Feb 5, 2021, 4:07 PM IST

Instagram has taken down hundreds of Instagram accounts that were hacked and sold for their high-value usernames, including the accounts of people behind this activity.

The people engaged in the practice were well-known figures in a community known as the OGUsers, Facebook said. Twitter and TikTok have also taken action against OGUsers for breaking their rules.

The usernames, which can sell for tens of thousands of dollars, are often short words prized for their scarcity, like @food or letters like @B. Social media companies including Facebook-owned Instagram have rules against the sale of accounts

As reported by Reuters, The disabled accounts included those of swappers, who move the usernames to fresh Instagram accounts and middlemen, who oversee transactions between the username buyers and sellers and take a cut of the money, usually in bitcoin.