Strange men are constantly asking to follow me on IG

[Anonymous]

My IG site is private and I don't have a particularly good or bad picture of me on IG. However, in addition to the normal marketing follow requests from robots, I get a few men asking me to follow them every week. I don't know these guys and they are not in my network. I don't get many follow requests from women other than those clearly having something to sell or market. Are some people using it as a dating app?? How are they even finding me since my account is private??????

[Anonymous]

They use it to jerk off.

[Anonymous]

Following since this happens to me as well. I have a private account with a profile photo take from some distance away. Every week a couple of randos try to follow me. It often seems like they are new to IG, but why would you ask to follow some random stranger who has a private account with a few dozen followers, and is not a social media influencer?

[Anonymous]

IG recommends people for newbies to follow.

I also have this happen, and changed my profile pic to something other than a personal photo...like a flower or snow scene or something.

On Facebook, I have noted that when my profile pic is only me with an older relative, I tend to get lots of randoms claiming they are doctors try to "friend" me.

[Anonymous]

Do you like photos from accounts with millions of followers? For example, if you like a photo that Beyonce puts up, there are some bots that will go down that list and follow request all 3 million people.

I just delete and move on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Following since this happens to me as well. I have a private account with a profile photo take from some distance away. Every week a couple of randos try to follow me. It often seems like they are new to IG, but why would you ask to follow some random stranger who has a private account with a few dozen followers, and is not a social media influencer?

Have you heard of bots?

Your username is not a secret. Your photo are kept private. There's a difference.

[Anonymous]

I wouldn't worry about it. I find that I have the same thing happen after I follow a sports figure. I think there are bots set up to do this. If it really is a human you can always decline and block--whatever makes you feel more comfortable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Following since this happens to me as well. I have a private account with a profile photo take from some distance away. Every week a couple of randos try to follow me. It often seems like they are new to IG, but why would you ask to follow some random stranger who has a private account with a few dozen followers, and is not a social media influencer?

Have you heard of bots?

Your username is not a secret. Your photo are kept private. There's a difference.

Your profile photo is not kept private. Anyone can see your profile photo.

[Anonymous]

OP here. Sorry for the ignorance, but what is a bot? So the guys are not real people?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Sorry for the ignorance, but what is a bot? So the guys are not real people?

A bot is a 'robot', i.e. a computer program running automatically that does things like follow you, spam you, etc. Bots are all over the Internet. Some are relatively harmless, i.e. "Buy This Laundry Soap" message to everyone who tweets about taking a bath, others are malicious like automatically attacking your email server with 100,000 common passwords trying to get access.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Sorry for the ignorance, but what is a bot? So the guys are not real people?

[Anonymous]

Instagram is at least 60% bots. The likes, the comments, the unfollows and follows and fake people.

To make a convincing fake person he/she needs to follow a reasonable number of people and be followed by the same. It's better (and more durable) if your bot network doesn't just follow itself, because it makes it less likely that it will be deleted quickly. Also, you need a constant supply of plausible pictures. So if you make a bot, steal some photos, and then automatically follow a few thousand random people and hope a few follow you back, you can then sell that bot as a follower to businesses and (lol) "influencers."

People also buy bots to like content, follow and unfollow people and to comment on other people's photos. So many times even a "real" account is being animated by a bot.