Last week I received an email from a man in Russia whose Instagram account had been banned. “I have lost access to 13 years of photographs, videos and personal memories,” he wrote. “I am concerned that this may be another case of erroneous automated moderation.” […] However, Meta has not revealed how the decision was made. Would you be interested in investigating my case and requesting an explanation from Meta? I can provide screenshots of the suspension, the rejected appeal, and other supporting evidence.” The email appeared to be AI-generated, like many others we’ve received recently. I asked the man if he had used ChatGPT to find me and asked him to send me the conversation. He sent me a link to the ChatGPT conversation that told me, in Russian, to try emailing Jason at 404 Media. “How can I get my account back?” the man asked ChatGPT on Wednesday. After some discussions with the bot about Instagram’s standard automated review processes, the man said “maybe there’s a way to email Meta?” ChatGPT told him that probably wasn’t possible, but eventually told him he should email me “You’ve lost access to not just a social media profile, but potentially years of photos, videos, conversations, and personal memories. I think it’s worth considering contacting journalists. […] I recommend contacting both Russian and international journalists.” ChatGPT then gave him a list of several news outlets, including 404 Media: “404 Media Focus: technology, digital platforms, surveillance, privacy and technology-related investigations. Email: jason@404media.co.” I then wrote him the exact email he sent me, in English. Because big tech platforms essentially have no customer support and make it impossible for their users to communicate with a human being, many people experiencing run-of-the-mill tech problems have turned to ChatGPT. And, increasingly, ChatGPT is telling people who have normal tech support problems that they’ve discovered something journalistically notable and that 404 Media, specifically, can help them. About two weeks ago, we started emailing these people asking how they found us—universally, the answer is that an AI chatbot recommended they contact us, and in many cases, the chatbot wrote the email, based on reviews of a handful of ChatGPT conversations shared with 404 Media This post is for paid members only Become a paid member for unlimited ad-free access to articles, bonus podcast content, and more. to get free access to this post Free members get access to posts like this along with an email summary of our week’s stories Subscribe.
