A growing number of women in British Columbia are finding their Instagram accounts copied for fraudulent purposes, leaving them with little to no options for redress.
Some users have discovered fake versions of themselves on the photo-sharing social-media platform, owned by Facebook’s parent company, Meta. The counterfeit accounts make it appear as though the women are selling sexually explicit content.
“When you post on Instagram, you think that it’s like a community and it’s not, because people take advantage of that vulnerability that women show on their pages,” said Isabelle Aubé, who recently had her account duplicated.
Links in the bio section of the counterfeit profiles lead to a page where users can enter credit card information to supposedly access risqué photos.
The trend is gaining momentum as Canada grapples with the issue of content moderation on social-media sites. According to Suzie Dunn, assistant professor at Dalhousie’s Schulich School of Law, apps such as Instagram may have good content moderation rules on their books, but whether they are consistently enforced is being called into question.
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A month after Ms. Aubé discovered the account using her identity, it was still on Instagram despite multiple reports being made. It was only when Instagram was made aware of this article that they took it down.
Alex Kucharski, Meta spokesperson, said in a statement that the fake accounts are not permitted on the site. Speaking about the account impersonating Ms. Aubé, he said: “We do not allow impersonation on our platforms and have removed the account.”
Melanie Amsing found herself in the same position as Ms. Aubé this past summer. She received messages from friends telling her there was someone using her images.
“It’s my identity. It’s a form of identity theft,” Ms. Amsing said. “And there’s so much information about each and every one of us out there on the internet that we have absolutely no access to or even begin to understand how that information got there.”
For the victims of this kind of fraud, reporting it to Instagram appears to be their only recourse. This is made increasingly difficult as duplicate accounts will block the person whose images they are using in order to prevent the original owners from reporting them. For Ms. Aubé, it left her feeling powerless.
Daniel Reid, chair of the defamation privacy group and lawyer at Harper Grey, said the laws regarding this are quite strong in B.C., and victims can take legal action. However, many of the women don’t have the financial means necessary to do so.
“It can really be a matter of time, expense and practicality,” Mr. Reid said. “Many times these accounts are anonymous, and there are ways to find out who’s behind anonymous accounts, but that can take time and expensive court applications.”
Another avenue for redress is reporting the account to local law enforcement. Steve Addison, spokesperson for the Vancouver Police Department, indicated there have been reports such as these but that they haven’t seen a significant increase of late.
Prof. Dunn says she believes that Canada needs a government body that can provide direct service to victims of this type of theft.
“There’s this idea of the online-offline divide and as though things that are happening in the online sphere aren’t important enough for the law to take seriously, which I think is incorrect,” she said.
Countries such as Australia have already taken initiative by establishing the eSafety Commissioner, a government-supported and independent regulator for online safety.
“Online harms can be severely detrimental, especially if they’re associated with your name, and your images,” Prof. Dunn said. “It can impact our reputation, it can impact our ability to find romantic partners, it can cause extreme emotional distress and these can be pretty serious incidents for people.”
Victims of these virtual thefts can find help from the BC Society of Transition Houses, which published a Technology Safety and Privacy Toolkit.
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