Comment by joao
2 hours ago
I'm among the first 6000 users of Instagram and my first name username was stolen a few years ago. Support for verified accounts acknowledged the issue, but couldn't do anything about it.
This turn was an AI exploit, in my case was an outsourcing support 'exploit', where someone paid for my username to be manually changed and given to another user. There will always be a way to get access to accounts if human accountable support doesn't exist, with criminal consequences for employees that violate it.
Can you sue? I assume there is a financial motive with this crime.
Sue who? Meta? You "consented" in the Terms of Service to waive your right to a trial and only get forced arbitration by an arbitrator of Meta's choosing.
Sue the anonymous person who stole your account and sold it to someone else, who is probably nowhere near your jurisdiction? Good luck.
Clickwrap terms of service are worth the paper they're printed on. You may still be able to sue.
> with criminal consequences for employees that violate it
lol, no. The day someone is criminally charged with "stealing" a username is the day that humanity has lost
The good usernames generally are valued at thousands of dollars or more. Surely stealing something worth that much money should be a crime.
You might be interested in reading the court case against Eric Meiggs and Declan Harrington, which includes charges against the two involving extortion and SIM swapping for usernames. See page 10: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mad.215...
While it isn't directly "stealing", the government has brought charges against people in the past for username-related crimes. There are several similar cases, but this is the first one that came to mind.