About this account via API: country, join date, former usernames

Before trusting an Instagram account — a seller in your marketplace, an influencer pitch, a counterparty in a deal — you check the About this account screen: which country the account declares, when it was created, how many usernames it burned through. That screen has an API counterpart, and it is one call: GET /user/about/{user_id}.

The call

curl -H "X-API-Key: $KEY" \
  "https://api.getsocialapi.com/v1/user/about/25025320"

{
  "username": "instagram",
  "country": "United States",
  "joined_at": "February 2012",
  "former_usernames": null,
  "accounts_with_shared_followers": null,
  "is_verified": true,
  "unavailable": false,
  "has_about_data": true
}

How to read the fields

Field	Reading
country	what the account declares — treat as a signal, not proof
joined_at	registration month; a 2025 join date on a "brand" account is a red flag
former_usernames	count of previous handles; high values track rebranded or bought accounts
accounts_with_shared_followers	how many suggested accounts share the audience — bot farms cluster here
is_verified	platform badge
unavailable	deleted/banned — other fields are useless
has_about_data	always check before using values

Sparse and private accounts return null fields — that is normal, not an error. The useful pattern for trust scoring:

about = ig.user_about(user_id)
if about["unavailable"] or not about["has_about_data"]:
    risk = "unknown"
elif about["former_usernames"] and about["former_usernames"] > 3:
    risk = "elevated"
else:
    risk = "normal"

Pair it with the profile

user_about answers who is behind the account; the profile endpoint answers what the account does (follower ratio, bio, category). Together they form a cheap two-call screen for fraud pipelines, marketplace onboarding and due-diligence automations.

Takeaways

One call, no cookies, no login — country, join date, former usernames and shared-follower clustering for any account id. Resolve usernames to ids with the search endpoint first. The first 100 calls are free — start here.

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