“OMG, your bank details are posted on your Insta handle” squealed the daughter in alarm late last night. She definitely visits my handle way more than I do. My handle @jessiepauloninsta had been changed to @jeessiepauloninsta and was busy selling bitcoins. My photo had been used on one post to celebrate my “returns”. Hacking in the past has meant that your friends would receive messages pleading for help and money. This is different.

I’ve mostly lurked on Insta. When everyone said Facebook is dead I also opened an account there and post the occasional photo. I did not realize I was an Insta influencer until today. I have received SO many messages asking if I am actually promoting Bitcoin. I sincerely hope that none of my friends is buying on the basis of these messages. I would hope that they exercised their intelligence and did their due diligence.

I was one of the earliest users of Facebook. I remember attending a Fortune event in 2009 and meeting David Kirkpatrick who went on to author “The Facebook Effect” a year later. At the time Facebook was this shiny new hope and I signed up. A year later I was competing for likes, friends, and fraandship. I was writing my first book, No Money Marketing, and I catalogued everything from the title to its launch on Facebook. Of late my usage has been mostly for the groups which are very useful for niche hyperlocal topics and as an archive of my photos. Pretty harmless to keep it going, I thought. Till last night.

I have reached out through the proper channels, and also the back channels to retrieve my account. But the damage may already be done if any of my followers considered me an authority on Bitcoin. The damage has certainly been done to my sense of safety online. I don’t want to do anything hasty but I will definitely be reconsidering social going forward. Even LinkedIn where I was amongst the first 100,000 on the platform.