"Time" Instagram profile under attack by bots

In the finish election campaigns The Instagram account of the weekly "Vreme", one of the few remaining independent media outlets in Serbia, came under attack cyber attack.

The characteristic of this attack is the unusually large number of fake accounts that followed the "Vremena" Instagram account on Tuesday - over 200 in about half an hour.

Attacks on Compass and Machine

Similar attacks took place at the end of September, when the Instagram accounts of the Kompas and Mašina portals, as well as the 021 portal, were targeted.

The Kompas-info Instagram profile was followed by more than 1.500 accounts in just 15 minutes, and during the coordinated bot attack in a short period of time, the Mašina Instagram account was followed by around 10.000 new accounts.

Such attacks can be a serious problem for social media accounts. An unnatural increase in the number of followers can be recognized by Instagram's systems as an artificial increase in the audience, i.e. the use of bots and fake accounts to falsify statistics.

According to the rules of Instagram, the detection of inauthentic activity can lead to the limitation of certain functions of the account, temporary blocking, and in severe cases, suspension.

A sudden increase in the number of followers in itself is not a reason for a sanction if it is a consequence of organic growth, such as viral content, but a problem can arise if the platform determines that the followers are fake or that they were obtained using illegal means.

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