More than 1 billion users of Instagram, the widely acclaimed online photo-sharing app, will be able to evaluate the accounts’ authenticity now, only a few weeks after its parent company, Facebook, Inc., applied similar actions to eliminate fake accounts from their social network.
Instagram said it would launch a feature titled “About this Account” that enables users to see which advertisements are applied to a given account, the country where the account is based, any changes in the username in the past year, as well as other information.
“Keeping people with bad intentions off our platform is incredibly important, it means trying to make sure that the people you follow and the accounts you interact with are who they say they are, and stopping bad actors before they harm,” stated Instagram co-founder and chief technology officer, Mike Krieger.
Instagram will verify the authenticity of users’ accounts and add a two-factor authentication system via third-party apps
Also, the social network stated that it would permit the use of third-party software, such as Duo Mobile and Google Authenticator, for two-factor authentication to provide users with more secure access to their accounts.
Two-step authentication provides an optional security feature, besides usernames and passwords, by asking users for an extra credential to access their accounts.
Earlier in August, Facebook added a similar tool for users who are managing pages with a high number of followers across the United States to help make pages more difficult to administrate for those who use a fake or compromised Facebook accounts. Those new tools will be made available to anyone in the next few weeks, said representatives of Instagram in a recent blog article.
As of yesterday, Tuesday, August 28th, Instagram allows accounts with numerous followers to ask for verification via a tool inside the app, the social network stated.
