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Comment by throwigemp1 | Hacker News Reader

I work at Instagram and there's literally zero chance of this happening. I work on the backend, so I know the kind of tools or logging we do. If in the chance this happens remotely, like 1 in a million chance, the employee will be fired like instantly.

I can't believe a random tweet with a screenshot is on front page of HN with 500+ upvotes.

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Well then I'm sure you'll put in a ticket on Monday and have this investigated.

The account transfer happening may well have occurred, whilst the mechanism is misrepresented (likely by the attacker). Either way, a claimed user is plausibly representing a problem with no viable recourse from IG/FB.

The upshot of unauthorised account transfer would still lie on Instagram/Facebook, and should you in fact be a back-end engineer, filing a ticket and escalation would be strongly encouraged.

> I can't believe a random tweet with a screenshot is on front page of HN with 500+ upvotes.

How does that outcome compare to the believability of your average HN throwaway account?

Green username person says it's like a one in a million chance. Fired instantly? Oh the nos, will The Zuck rain down torment and lightning from the sky like Zeus?

I mean this has happened with Instagram accounts historically.

https://medium.com/@behoff/they-say-nothing-will-change-5c54...

That's from 2014. However, it seems like there's not been an official statement, so, unclear how or why it got resolved.

These days in 2020, a short Instagram handle is probably worth more than it was in 2014, though.

It wouldn't be if Facebook didn't prove in the past it is the most immoral online company. I get that they pay you, but maybe it's time to take another look at your employer with a more objective lens?

Here we go. Instagram guy tells us it cannot happen. Investigation closed.

If you can't believe a crazy conspiracy theory about Facebook would get 500+ on HN then you haven't been in post-2016 HN much.

That is the software engineer mantra: "There is no way that bug could happen... Oh"

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