How some poor guy called Andres Iniesta had his Instagram account taken off him

Instagram only reversed the decision after he kicked up a fuss publicly

Have the name/handle of a famous person? Then your social media accounts could be stripped from you at random.

This is what appeared to happen to one Spanish man on Instagram, who shared a name with Barcelona footballer Andres Iniesta.

"I am a father who likes to take pictures of his kids, yummy food and interesting buildings in Madrid," he wrote on Medium. "I usually share them on Instagram with friends and family.

"But four days ago and without previous notice, Instagram decided to close my account. The reason was that I “infringed the Terms of Use”."

The man (hereon Ineista II) contacted Instagram through Twitter and a contact form hoping to find out why he had suddenly been removed, but to no avail.

Soon after, the footballing Iniesta (Iniesta I) started using his handle (@ainiesta), and Iniesta II's friends noticed Iniesta I appearing in their following lists.

Eventually, Instagram restored Iniesta II's account to him and reverted Iniesta I's back to @AndresIniesta8, saying in a brief statement to Gizmodo: "We made a mistake here and restored the account as soon as we learned about it. Our apologies go out to Mr. Iniesta for the trouble we caused him."

It's worrying that it took the man making a public stink for Instagram to correct its "mistake". Sad though it may be, social media accounts are a big part of our lives now, and shouldn't be taken from you simply because you post photos of interesting buildings rather than working as professional footballer.

There is no suggestion that Iniesta, the footballer, was involved in the change of account.

Anyway, stayed tuned to @AndresIniesta8 for such great posts as:

Andres Iniesta pointing at sweets!

A photo posted by Andres Iniesta (@andresiniesta8) on May 1, 2015 at 2:12am PDT

Andres Iniesta looking through a microscope!

A photo posted by Andres Iniesta (@andresiniesta8) on Apr 30, 2015 at 9:29am PDT

@christophhooton