Instagram is taking additional steps to fight misinformation on its platform. The Facebook subsidiary says that it will start asking some account owners to confirm their identities. This will be done when the company sees what it calls “potential inauthentic behaviour”.
So what does the company consider potential inauthentic behaviour? Instagram says one example coordinated inauthentic behaviour, which is when multiple accounts spread inaccurate information at the same time. Then there’s more basic suspicious activity, like having a majority of followers that’s in a different region as you are, or automating your account using bots.
For most users, this wouldn’t be something you need to worry about. But if Instagram makes the mistake of flagging an authentic account as suspicious, there are two groups of IDs that the company will accept as verification. Both of which the company will only keep for 30 days upon verification.
There’s what it calls Group One, which consists of birth certificates, drivers licenses, passports and others like it. These usually come with a lot of info, so providing one is usually enough. Group Two are things with less, but still identifiable information. Credit cards, bank statements, utility bills and school IDs fall under this category, and you’ll need to provide two different types to serve as verification.
(Source: Instagram)
