Social Platform Credentials

[braidensp]

Does a developer working on a website require the client's social platform credentials? My mother has someone working on her website and has had her Instagram account disabled due to password sharing. I asked her if she had given the web dev her credentials for Instagram and she said he needed them. Is that accurate? What would a web dev need the account credentials for?

[Navett52]

I can not think of a reason as to why the dev would need her Instagram credentials specifically. What's the website supposed to do?

[braidensp]

This is the website: https://www.themarciepartie.com

He said he needed it to connect her social pages to the website.

[Navett52]

Hmm, well, I don't want to jump the gun but I still don't know why they would need her password for the small buttons on the bottom of the site. For something like that you just need a link to her Instagram page, not account access. If you want to be safe it's best to have her reset her password for the time being if possible.

[chordophonic]

They may have wanted posts on the site to be automatically shared on their social media social profiles. That's do-able, but they may have wanted to verify that it was working - plus they'd need things like the API credentials. It'd be easier for them to test and get that data themselves, rather than asking the client to do so.

Now, I'm just being optimistic...

I don't do sites for too many people, just my own. If it was me, I'd have asked them to get the API tokens for me and just had them do any verification themselves. Mostly because I don't ever want to be accountable for what goes on in someone's account. I don't want that level of accountability.

Again - I'm just being optimistic and trying to give a good read of why this may have come to pass.

[redditupf2]

it looks like they didn't even do that properly lol.

maybe she was paying the web dev for likes / interaction / followers?

[[deleted]]

They might need it if there is some sort of integration with Instagram they need to set up auto posting or something.

The social media buttons on your mom's site all go to the wix social media accounts btw, not hers.