THREAD: Here’s the story of @homegrownterrorists on Instagr…

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

Hey, @instagram. \U0001f44b

Can you please recover my accounts, @HomegrownTerrorists and @OutTerrorists, and help me to hand them off to @FBI/@FBIWFO?

There are hundreds to thousands of DMs.

cc: @Facebook
— @HomegrownTerrorists (@OutTerrorists) January 9, 2021