The day I realised I let my daughter down.

This blog post is a bit different. It’s not what I would usually write about, but writing is therapeutic for me and I feel I need to get my thoughts and feelings out, and on to paper (so to speak). I also want to answer some of the common questions I have been getting because I am completely overwhelmed with messages and emails at the moment (which is also super lovely) about what happened to my daughter and I last week with the Instagram impersonator.

The 19th September was an awful day for me. I had just clicked on my notifications on Instagram when I noticed the very top notification; it was the last person who had liked one of my photos. I didn’t recognize the name or handle, but it was the Instagram user’s profile photo that caught my eye. It was a photo of my daughter and I in the Blue Mountains.

Confused, and wondering what the heck my daughter and I were doing in a stranger’s profile photo, I clicked on the profile.

What I saw shook me to the core.

It was an entire account, which had been running since late 2017, filled with photos of my daughter and I. Some photos were of my daughter and I together, some were of just me, and some were of just my daughter. It was a public account with 106 followers.

When I started looking at the captions, panic began to hit. Someone was pretending to be me, and pretending that MY beautiful daughter, was theirs.

Getting our Christmas spirit on lol said one, attached to a photo of me and my daughter wearing Santa hats.

They grow up so fast. My joy. said another where my daughter was pictured holding an ice cream.

She was Santa’s favourite said another where she sat on Santa’s knee.

She controls my world.

Life would have been hell without you my Angel.

My beauty.

Without you there will be no me #addicted to you.

And on it went…

I got chills and then I thought I would be sick. The nausea didn’t go away all day.

Never have I felt so violated.

If it were just me that had been impersonated, it would have been incredibly creepy but I would not have been as upset as I was if they had not done this to my daughter too.

I immediately reported the page as spam and then reached out to my community to do the same. I then filled out the necessary form to alert Instagram that someone was impersonating me (isn’t it sad that that there is even a form for that?). And I filled it in with all the information and attached the required photo of me holding a form of photo identification. I had to prove I was me. Tears streamed down my face. And then I waited. Unable to concentrate on anything all day.

As soon as I reached out to my beautiful community on Instagram I was blown away by the support. Loads of people went and reported the page as spam and reached out to me with messages of love and support. Truly that was the nicest thing to come out of the experience. It made me see, just as I was doubting humanity, that there were ~really~ kind people in the world.

I also reached out to an amazing social media community (about social media) that I am a member of. Not long after the fake account had come to my attention, the person impersonating me had changed the username and handle, and shortly later, even made the account private. Luckily one of the members of the Facebook group was still in the account looking at it for me and was able to grab screenshots for me of every single photo and caption before she exited.

I was advised to call the Police, which I did. They told me there wasn’t much they could do, and that I would just have to wait for Instagram to handle it, which could take weeks.

Luckily for us, the account was shut down within 24 hours.

When I first discovered the account, I had a quick look at the followers but I didn’t think to screenshot them. At the time I was panicked. But what I found most disturbing was that most of the followers seemed to be middle aged men. And what scares me the most is the potential that this is part of some pedophile ring. Maybe I’m just being paranoid, but there was something not quite right about all of it. It’s so disgusting. And I hope to God I am wrong.

This discovery made me see that I let my daughter down.

I always knew that having a public Instagram profile was a risk. I was naive, but I did not expect that anyone would do that. I’m devastated that this has happened. And I am very disappointed with myself. It’s my job to protect my daughter. It’s my job to be her spokesperson and to keep her safe. And it’s my job to do what’s in her best interest. I failed her.

EVERYONE posts pictures of their children people assured me. But the fact of the matter is, not everyone does. Not everyone has public social media accounts and not everyone shares pictures of their children. But even though I knew the risk, I didn’t think that would happen to us. And I thought that by protecting her name and by never sharing photos of her that show too much skin, it was enough.

It wasn’t.

I thought that by sharing parts of our life, even though I have to deal with a handful of trolls from time to time, it was worth it. It was worth it because of all the people coming forward thanking me for sharing our life and that it has helped them to see that their life is normal too. Just like ours. That was my intention. And for that reason, it has been amazing.

Many people are asking – was this my ex? Either my daughter’s dad or perhaps even the guy that ghosted me last year?

I truly don’t think it was either. My daughter’s dad and I don’t always see eye-to-eye but I don’t think even he would do that. And as for the guy that ghosted me? What would he have to gain?

I believe it was random, but I believe they found me and were targeting someone using the #singlemum, #singlemom, or #motherdaughter hashtags so they could get plenty of mother and daughter photos. And with my account, they got lucky. I believe last week they accidentally liked my photo and I just happened to be on Instagram at the right time to see it (thank you Universe). They weren’t even following me. Clearly they did not want me to know about this account they had. The scary thing is? How many people is this happening to that are completely unaware?

I am spending a lot of time re-thinking my social media strategy. For me, sharing some of our life on Instagram has been a wonderful experience. And I have connected with some lovely lovely people. But is it worth it to me when the safety of my child is at risk? No. Nothing is more important to me than my daughter’s happiness, health, and safety.

So what will I do moving forward? I’m still processing it all. I will be keeping my Instagram account and I will still share some of our life. But will definitely be investigating and implementing precautions to put in place to protect my daughter. And if the only way is to not post photos of my daughter, then so be it.

Have you ever had any issues with privacy and social media? How did you handle it? Tell me in the comments below. I’d love to hear about it!

P.S DID YOU KNOW?

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