A new report in the online magazine The Daily Beast reveals that at least three well-known porn performers, who have relied on the social media network Instagram to develop and cultivate their fan base, have recently seen their Instagram accounts infiltrated and seized by hackers, locking them out, in one instance, for a full month.
As the article by Aurora Snow—a former performer turned journalist who covers the adult industry regularly for the publication—points out, many porn performers rely in social media not only to develop a loyal fan base, but to promote themselves for live appearances and to sell products, all of which are vital sources of income for performers in the current industry environment.
Many porn performers say that they have seen a better return from Instagram than from other social media platforms, Snow reports, citing statistics showing that Instagram generate “the most engagement per post compared to any social network—84 times more than Twitter, 54 times more than Pinterest and 10 times more than Facebook.”
As a result, the hacking attacks on porn performers’ Instagram accounts can have cause serious financial damage.
“I couldn’t get into my account for a month. I was locked out and this is my business. This is how I interact with my fans, share what’s happening, and post pictures. Social media is everything right now,” said performer Alana Luv, a 2017 AVN Award nominee.
Luv told Snow that she was able to retain a lawyer after she contacted Instagram and found the company “not responsive at all,” and with legal assistance was able to regain access to her account.
Another porn actress, Raven Hart, said that after her Instagram account was seized by a hacker and the company—which has been a subsidiary of Facebook since the social media mega-firm bought the photo-sharing platform in a $1 billion deal in 2012—did not respond to requests to fix the situation, she was forced to create a whole new account, taking up the painstaking process of building online followers from scratch.
Performer Carmen Valentina was forced to do the same thing after receiving, she told Snow, no help from Instagram. “My old account had about 180,000 followers, so it really sucked to start all over,” she told The Daily Beast. “But I’d rather start over then give in to some ass who wants to make my life miserable.”
The hacking attack directed at Valentina took an especially creepy and disturbing turn when she received a text message from someone purporting to be the hacker on her personal phone.
“(He said) I’d have my account back if I do something for him, like make a video saying he hacked me and how ‘awesome’ he was,” Valentina told Snow. When she refused, the hacker deleted all photos from her Instagram feed and the “doxxed” her, that is, released personal information about her, in this case her phone number, online.
Snow contacted Instagram for a response to the hacking attacks and was told by a spokesperson, “We’re currently investigating what took place with these accounts and I’ll circle back when I have more to share.”
Yusuf1020 / Wikimedia Commons
