Grow your Instagram account

swellize.com

3 points·ramonfritsch··6 comments

So, if I understand:

This is basically an automation service that monitors hashtags you provide, and impersonates you to automatically like and comment on found posts to draw attention back to your account and hopefully get likes and follows from the activity?

Sounds like a great way to get banned.

Yes it is. You don't get banned because the robot works inside Instagram's API daily limits. It's just like a regular person doing likes here and there during the day.

But it's not a real person though.. And that does make a difference.

This is a neat idea, but you should double-check the ToS for Instagram.

There is some pretty clear language in there about not using their API to automatically interact with other accounts (including liking & commenting on photos) unless you have an existing business relationship with the accounts you're posting to (not the account you're impersonating).

It actually uses screen scrapping as primary resource and the api just to read stuff out. It's the exact same request and interaction as a real person would do with a browser, so no violation of ToS.

Instagram's terms of use (https://help.instagram.com/478745558852511) is nowhere near as neutral as your summary of it. For example, it says:

> We prohibit crawling, scraping, caching or otherwise accessing any content on the Service via automated means, including but not limited to, user profiles and photos (except as may be the result of standard search engine protocols or technologies used by a search engine with Instagram's express consent).

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