THREAD: Here’s the story of @homegrownterrorists on Instagram.

If anyone has a direct email to someone at @Instagram who can help get our account back, please DM.

1/x

This begins on Monday, 48 hours before the #CapitolAttack. I was reading about the #StopTheSteal rally and realized it was on the same day as certification. I told a colleague I was concerned there would be a takeover the Capitol Building to block the vote.

2/x
What would come was not a surprise.

On Wednesday, that colleague sent me a Slack message: “Not to freak you out, but…”

3x
knew what was coming and checked Twitter and turned on CNN. I was still horrified. And I wanted to see everyone of the domestic terrorists identified.

4x
Fast-forward a couple hours and I began pulling images together and created the @homegrownterrorists account on Instagram and posting with the U.S. Capitol geotag, a few hashtags, and captions saying “DO YOU RECOGNIZE THIS TERRORIST?”

5/x
At 3:43 p.m., Richard “Bigo” Barnett was the first to be identified.

6/x
Immediately some likes came in. Then came comments — from MAGA trolls.

They left despicable comments like, “That’s Breonna Taylor,” “that’s George Floyd,” “that’s Anne Frank,” and so on. Many also said “Samuel Hyde,” which I still don’t understand.

7/x
I blocked them and blocked them and blocked them, and they kept coming back en masse, “don’t block us, ma’am.”

I figured out how to only allow comments from followers, figuring they would stop. I also set a filter to block comments using the names they were posting.

8/x
From 2 p.m. to 2 a.m. I posted and amassed around 1,000 followers.

When I woke up at 8 a.m. on Thursday, there were 2,000.

9/x
Shoutouts from major influencers and celebrities came in, including @MeghanMcCain. By 8 p.m. there were 200,000. That’s when I began to get nervous.

10/x
Could the images I was sharing be traced back to an IP, publicly, through the metadata?

Or geolocation?

I archived posts.

These terrorists broke into the Capitol Building. They could break into my house.

11/x
Followers generously sent donations on Cash App, which I used to get a dedicated device and VPN.

I set the account to private get sorted and to hopefully get a better night’s sleep. (I didn’t.)

12/x
I woke up in the morning and began posting again. But I began to run into limits.

My account started showing these pop-ups on every page I opened in the Instagram app, including DMs — which were flooding in by the second.

13/x
Instagram contacts said, “The FBI is involved with it. That’s all I can say.”

I freaked out more. Is what I’m doing illegal?

Others at IG told me, “The FBI is involved. You’re not doing anything wrong. In fact, your probably safer.”

14/x
I spoke to a reporter at Vice News — and it was nice to talk to someone about it, but my headspace was fucked as the follow count surpassed 250,000.

He suggested I get a temporary therapist to reveal all this to. (Not a bad idea! 😂)

15/x
Still concerned, I deleted the account, knowing @Instagram let’s you reactivate it if you “change your mind” within 30 days.

Welp, when I went to log back in... @Instagram locked me out. I am still unable to reactivate @homegrownterrorists, despite what IG says.

16/x
I moved to the back up account (which was “nametheterrorists,” but I changed it to @OutTerrorists to match Twitter.)

I set up a new backup, which is still live at https://t.co/PtSWBp655z.

17/x
@OutTerrorists climbed to 60-65,000 followers and then was deactivated after posting info from Wimkin about the Million Militia March planned for Inauguration Day.

I still am locked out.

18/x
I have emailed a few emails at Facebook hoping to get back into either, but it seems like a lost cause at this point.

There are thousands of DMs with tips sitting in the accounts that cannot be recovered, it seems.

19/x
The journalist I spoke with at Vice told me his FB contact sent him this:

“We aren’t seeing anything on our end that could be causing this. It might be helpful…to download the latest version of the app. The account is unavailable, confirming IG didn’t remove the account.”

20/x
That’s the story so far.

If you’ve got a contact at @instagram, gimme a shout in the DMs.

21/21 https://t.co/EPWQqKD2uo

More from Government

This article by Jim Spellar for @LabourList misses the point about why Labour needs to think seriously about constitutional reform - and have a programme for it ready for government.


The state of our constitution is a bit like the state of the neglected electric wiring in an old house. If you are moving into the house, sorting it out is a bit tedious. Couldn’t you spend the time and money on a new sound system?

But if you ignore the wiring, you’ll find that you can’t safely install the new sound system. And your house may well catch fire.

Any programme for social democratic government requires a state with capacity, and a state that has clear mechanisms of accountability, for all the big and all the small decisions that in takes, in which people have confidence.

That is not a description of the modern UK state.
I am going to take the context for this thread from this piece by my good brother @mabziz in 2018-3 years ago. One thing I am so perturbed about is the response of our Attorney General's office to issues of state security. I have no personal grouse against @MalamiSan, but


2. I do have a professional grouse against him. I feel he is not alive to his duties. I feel that he is also not empowering his Director of Public Prosecutions or his Solicitor General. There is clearly a lot that befuddles me and this is because I am a seasoned lawyer and can't/

3. understand why law is not being used as the instrument it was designed for-to enforce law and order. Let us take the case of Nnamdi Kanu-this man was arraigned in Nigeria on a charge of treason/treasonable felony-he was on bail & he jumped bail. Why has he not been extradited?

4. Is it that Kanu is somehow bigger than Nigeria? What has happened to his surety who failed to produce him? Who is prosecuting him? Our Federal Ministry of Justice? Should Malami not explain to Nigeria why Nnamdi Kanu is still taunting Nigeria daily & still actively destroying/

5. our unity everyday. He is putting the lives of many people at risk and stoking ethnic dissent easily. The Fulani herdsmen dilemma, the burning of Lagos State and his coordination of same on phone-in radio channels, his videos are all stoking a Yoruba/Igbo carnage. Same with/

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