Saturday night, I got a message from a friend asking me if I had a second Instagram account, and I do have a second account. Not too long ago, in a move of prognostic practicality or misplaced optimism, I grabbed an IG handle which is just my name with the word “writer” at the end of it. You know, just in case. I had assumed that was what she was referring to.
Then about an hour later, another friend sent me a message with a screen shot of an IG account asking “What’s the deal with this? Were you hacked?” I opened the picture to see an account that had my picture, but was not me. Had I been hacked? What I knew at that moment was that I was being impersonated! There is a fake me out there. And sadly, about twenty of my friends were following it.
I took the screen shot and sent out a message, trying to use a vernacular that sounded as much like me as possible, to prove that this was actually ME sending out this post, announcing not to follow the fake me, and please report the fake bot account. A friend later pointed out what I had said was what a bot would say, trying to sound human? (I love my friends.)
I had to go back to the first person who alerted me, and tell them not to follow the bot. I felt rather embarrassed for the situation, as if I had caused it. I have witnessed this situation happen to others with their accounts, dutifully reported the fake accounts as they requested, and never once thought that they were responsible for the situation. But when this happened to me, I somehow felt I had done this, somehow. By the next day, I no longer felt like that, but still I was surprised at the tiny level of shame that came up in me.
Let that be a lesson to us all; yet another reason that it’s good to have friends that keep an eye out. And, don’t taunt bots. They are listening, and I, for one, do welcome our new robot overlords, and look forward to working in their mines.
