Instagram are asking certain users to provide video evidence to prove their identity. This comes from the social media platform being heavily against bot accounts. They’re all about organic profiles so if they suspect an account is performing bot like behaviour and might not be a real person behind the screen, they’ll ask you to prove your identity.
Instagram have started asking users to provide a video of themselves to prove they are who they say they are. The process won’t apply to all users. However, those who present suspicious behaviour will be required to show multiple angles of their face within a video. The social media platform has had a history of bots storming the site and spamming likes and follows. It goes against what Instagram want for their platform and ruins the experience for its users. This is why they aim to put a stop to it. Slowly accounts with artificial followers are being weaned out. Instagram will continue to clamp down on these issues.
The company have announced they won’t be storing this data for any reason other than identity purposes. It is unlikely you’ll be asked to submit a video. However, if your account is displaying bot-like behaviour, it will be required. Bot accounts damage the process for regular users. It becomes harder to gain a real following with accounts who set out to spam taking over. Instagram have confirmed they don’t use facial recognition, so the videos are for one purpose only.
Instagram’s owner, Meta, have had a lot of issues recently regarding trust. There have been several privacy leaks and data protection concerns. Following this, it is likely users will be sceptical of providing a video to the platform. The reason they require multiple angles is so people can’t trick the system. They won’t be able to confirm they are who they say they are without showing their face from multiple view points. What are your opinions on the situation? Do you agree with what they’re doing? We feel it’s a good thing to help protect users overall, but we can see the other side of it.
