Instagram awards $10k to 10-year-old for not deleting Justin Bieber’s comments

Parents of Nineties’ children didn’t enjoy them constantly starting at computer screens, but that’s probably because not many of them were able to find security-threatening bugs in the code of one of the most popular apps in the world.

A ten-year-old boy has done just that, and the app in question? Well, just that app Facebook bought for US$1-billion — Instagram.

Related: Instagram to ditch chronological feeds for algorithms

After discovering the bug and reporting it to Facebook, the company rewarded the Finnish kid with US$10 000, which seems a bit slim considering what the bug could’ve meant for the likes of Justin Bieber.

Speaking to Finnish publication Iltalehti (translation by The Guardian), he explains how:

“I tested whether the comments section of Instagram can handle harmful code. Turns out it can’t. I noticed that I can delete other people’s comments from there. I could have deleted anyone’s – like Justin Bieber’s for example – comments.”

Instagram and Facebook has given a number of citizen-hackers cuts for reporting threatening bugs, but this Finnish boy is the youngest thus far.

So, what have you done today?

Andy Walker, former editor
More

News

Sign up to our newsletter to get the latest in digital insights. sign up

Welcome to Memeburn

Sign up to our newsletter to get the latest in digital insights.