Get all your news in one place.
100's of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
Evening Standard
Evening Standard
Entertainment
Katie Strick

Has your Instagram been cloned yet? Inside the rise of social media identity theft (and what to do about it)

Francesca Henry felt like she was in an episode of Black Mirror or BBC cyber drama The Capture, watching herself — or someone at least claiming to be her — peddling crypto scams on Instagram, unable to stop them.

The personal finance expert, 33, had been running her Instagram account The Money Fox (@the.moneyfox) for two years when one of her 36,000 followers first alerted her to the copycat account. Investigating, she was shocked to discover an almost-perfect replica of the Instagram profile she’d put so much time and energy into building: her name, her picture, each of her 300 or so posts, perfectly cloned from the videos to the captions. The only difference: a slightly altered Instagram handle, @the_moneyfox1, and plugs for a new cryptocurrency scheme hidden among her posts.

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100's of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
One subscription that gives you access to news from hundreds of sites
Already a member? Sign in here
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.