New Delhi: In what could be an interesting development, social media platform Instagram locked out its head Adam Mosseri’s account early this year after a scammer falsely reported him dead. The incident that took place in September appears to be a slight setback for Instagram and its parent company Meta, as it reflects how the company treats account lock requests in case of the death of a user. 


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An Instagram user who goes by the username @Syenrai took the responsibility. The scammer told Vice's Motherboard that they were behind the ruse. They claimed to have created Mosseri’s fake obituary to convince the social media platform of his death. 


“I have a method which is as simple as finding an online obituary of a person who recently passed away. I then submit a memorialize request for the victim’s account using the random obituary I found, and it takes 1-2 days for support to process. As long as the obituary is recent (within the same week) the target will be memorialized. It works 98% of the time,” he told the publication. 


Instagram’s parent company Meta has confirmed that the account of Mosseri was memorialized for a short period in September, though incorrectly.  


“Like other internet services, Instagram has online forms to help people report suspicious activity or to let us know a friend or family member has passed away. Unfortunately, some people abuse these forms, so we hire investigators and cybersecurity specialists to detect scammers’ tactics, so we can improve and make it increasingly difficult for them.” An Instagram spokesperson reportedly said. Also Read: Netflix launches 5 mobile games for Apple users: Check how to download and play


The Vice reported that several users fail to get access to their accounts in such cases, even though Mosseri’s account was recovered by Instagram. “I find it ridiculous how Instagram lets such things even happen on their platform in the first place,” the scammer told Vice, adding, “The entire banning community needs to be discovered and reported to Instagram so they can put an end to this—it’s basically the dark side of Instagram." Also Read: Paytm IPO: Rs 18,300 crore initial offer fully subscribed on day 3