According to reports, Instagram states that they will start asking the Government ID from the owners of suspicious accounts.
Instagram has clearly been the favourite social media among teens and young adults. A lot of influencers are using Instagram to promote themselves or promote brands. All in all, Instagram is turning out to be a great place for some memes and self-branding. I would state it as the new Facebook for the younger generation.
With so much traffic comes so many problems. We have seen the race to get likes and comments can drive people crazy. Flaunting your followers or the shares of your posts is such a normal thing now. This has given rise to bot accounts, auto liker services and even paid followers. Instagram aims to reduce such unacceptable activities from its app.
What is a suspicious account?
Instagram, explained in a statement that this includes accounts potentially engaged in coordinated inauthentic behaviour or when a majority of someone’s followers are from a different country to their location or if they find signs of automation like in bot accounts.
Instagram will ask for a proper Government ID from the owner of such accounts and if they fail, their posts will be downranked in the feed. In the worst-case scenario, their account could be banned.
The types of Government ID which Instagram would accept are a passport or a driver’s license. Instagram accepts paycheck, bank-statements, or credit cards too.
Why this step?
Facebook also has a similar policy where they ask for government id as a proof from the popular pages running on the site.
With elections around in the US, this action is taken to stop the false spreading of news, Facebook has been accused of not finding a way to stop misinformation and inauthentic activity.
A report from the Senate Intelligence Committee on Russian election interference in 2016 found Instagram to be “the most effective tool used by the IRA to conduct its information operations campaign”.