Gypsy & The Cat's Instagram Taken Over By Hackers: 'We Are Essentially Helpless'
As GATC (formerly known as Gypsy & The Cat) announced an anniversary tour, they found their Instagram page overtaken by hackers.
GATC in 2010 (Credit: David Mandelberg)
Any artist will tell you that in the modern age, social media is one of the most vital tools of communication. However, for Naarm/Melbourne indie veterans GATC (formerly known as Gypsy & The Cat), a hacked Instagram account is hardly the key to announcing a successful anniversary tour.
On October 29th, GATC took to socials to end a few weeks of teasing a massive return to announce a 15th anniversary tour of their breakthrough album, Gilgamesh. For those who were there at the time, the success of the record is pretty memorable.
Going Gold following a peak at #14 on the national chart, the record was nominated for Best Pop Release and Breakthrough Artist – Album at the 2011 ARIA Awards, and even resulted in a spot on the Coachella lineup (which was ultimately cancelled).
Needless to say, news of the band hitting the road for a series of dates in Brisbane, Melbourne, Newcastle, and Sydney was exciting for their myriad fans, but the unveiling of the dates didn’t quite go as planned.
Don't miss a beat with our FREE daily newsletter
Taking to Instagram from their @gypsyandthecatofficial account, Xavier Bacash and Lionel Towers shared a message to their followers to explain why the nascent announcement may have resulted in unsolicited messages.
“Our 15th anniversary tour announcement last week for Gilgamesh was supposed to a special moment – a celebration of what the album did and meant to so many people and to reconnect with fans across Australia as we look to play shows again for the first time together in a decade, however, the downside of reactivating our socials lead to the @gypsyandthecat Instagram account to be hacked,” they wrote.
“As some of you might have seen, the scammers have been using our old account to directly message fans with scams to vote for them in social media influencers contests and even asking to input credit card details into links.”
The band continued to note that their appeals for help had thus far fallen on deaf ears, highlighting the roadblocks that Instagram’s parent company Meta had thrown in their way.
“Meta is doing nothing to help us,” they wrote. “They are happy to force artists to pay exorbitant fees in marketing to reach fans who already follow us and who we have built up on the platform over many years, but Meta will not step in when we need their help, even if it's to just make their platform safe.
“We have instead been working with police and filed a report with the Aus government's Esaftey commissioner - but as it stands we are essentially helpless.”
Notably, the news of the hacking also coincided with Meta being ‘awarded’ Choice’s Shonky Award for “failing to protect Aussies from scams”.
"This is a huge tech company, with some of the best resources to take action in this area, and yet we're still seeing so many scams originate on Meta's platforms," said Alex Söderlund, Choice’s senior campaigns and policy adviser.
"The protections that Meta is offering its users have not kept pace with the increased threat of scams consumers now face every day."
GATC continued their appeal to fans by requesting that they go to the @gypsyandthecat profile and report it as a scame. “Our hope in the short term is that this will have the account shut down, so no one will be harmed or affected as a result of the scams.”
At the time of writing, the orignal account is still active, though stories shared by GATC indidcate that it was taken down briefly before being reinstated. Currently, the initial account has not made any public posting’s since the band’s tour announcement in late October.
GATC aren't alone in their quandry, however, Hacked socials are an all-too common occurrence for artists in the modern age, with venues such as Brunswick Ballroom reporting on their own situation arlier this year. We've seen artists such as Eminem and Justin Bieber having their YouTube accounts hacked, and there's the famous story about Radiohead's OK Computer demos being hacked and held for ransom.
In July, The Last Martyr's Monica Strut reported on her own situation in the wake of heavy metal icons becoming victims of cyber hackers as well.
“Most of us don’t have Metallica-level resources,” she noted. “If you are a band, musician, or any small business for that matter, no doubt you can imagine what losing your social accounts would be like.”
“It’s already so hard for artists to stay in contact and communicate with their fan bases, so having someone using our name and band in the middle of promoting our anniversary tour is heartbreaking,” wrote concluded GATC in their own post.
“In the meantime, we'd like to thank everyone who has supported the tour so far and bought a ticket. We absolutely can't wait to get back on the road.”
In the meantime, you can help beat the scammers’ and their attempts to limit GATC’s visibility by nabbing a ticket to their upcoming tour.
This piece of content has been assisted by the Australian Government through Music Australia and Creative Australia, its arts funding and advisory body
More From Our Network
