‘Kia Boys’ Trend Fueling Nationwide Crime Wave Is Running Rampant on Instagram

Jessica had vaguely heard about the Kia Boys trend on social media from scattered news reports and a brief mention by the police officer who took her report. But it wasn’t until the summer, when a coworker showed her some Instagram accounts, that she fully understood what was going on. When searching “Kia Boys” or “Kia Boyz,” account after account popped up showing people stealing cars, joyriding in cars with ripped-up ignition boxes, and similar videos featuring cars that were seemingly stolen. Many of these videos, seen by Motherboard, showed extremely erratic and downright dangerous driving, such as playing chicken with parked cars at high speeds, driving into oncoming traffic in broad daylight, or speeding down a dedicated bike path or sidewalk. And a few showed people flashing guns

“I knew it was a viral sensation,” Jessica told Motherboard. “But I didn’t know it was, like, that deep, where the actual people stealing the cars were bragging and taunting their victims online.”

The nationwide surge in Kia and Hyundai thefts is the result of multiple, overlapping factors. The car companies didn’t install a simple, cheap, yet effective anti-theft device in most of its cars over a 10-year period unlike every other manufacturer, creating a vulnerability that makes the cars easy to target and steal. This vulnerability was widely shared on social media platforms starting in 2021 and a subculture developed around showing off those stolen cars in videos posted online to Kia Boys accounts. And the people who commit these crimes largely get away with it, for reasons that vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, but generally speaking reflect a trend in American policing where property and violent crimes tend to go unsolved.

Kia and Hyundai have tried to lay the blame squarely on the platforms for fanning the flames, and to a lesser extent cities for ineffective policing. 

But if you have only been following the Kia Hyundai theft trend via the media, you might be surprised to learn it is happening on Instagram at all. Stereotypically, TikTok is often perceived as the addictive social media platform with viral challenges and questionable political ties, while Instagram is a platform for hand hearts and handbags and the epicenter of borderline toxic influencer culture. 

Fitting these stereotypes, the viral thefts have almost exclusively been associated with TikTok. Over the last year, headlines across virtually every major publication—”Grand Theft TikTok,” “TikTok-inspired thefts prompt 17 states to urge recall of Kia, Hyundai vehicles,” “Hyundai and Kia agree to $200 million settlement over TikTok car theft challenge,” “TikTok challenge spurs rise in thefts of Kia, Hyundai cars”—have linked TikTok to the thefts, if not outright blaming it for fueling the fire. One Business Insider story shows up in search results as “Kia and Hyundai Thefts Are Soaring—and It’s TikTok’s Fault”. A Vox story which now has a different headline still shows up in search results as “How TikTok fueled Hyundai and Kia Thefts.” Meanwhile, there are vanishingly few headlines that mention Instagram. One of the only stories I could find that associate the Kia thefts with Instagram was a local news story in San Antonio about the arrest of an 18-year-old running “an Instagram account showing reckless and criminal acts with Kias.”

But, in practice, the Kia Boys trend has been just as prominent on Instagram as on TikTok, if not more so. And as Jessica soon found out, TikTok is much more aggressive about moderating Kia Boys posts than Instagram is. Now, some two-plus years into the trend, Instagram appears to be a more welcoming home for Kia Boys accounts than TikTok is as thefts continue to rise in cities around the country. 

A Meta spokesperson told Motherboard, “At Meta, we believe people should be free to express themselves while also remaining safe on our platforms. These values underlie the rules that govern what is and is not allowed on our platforms so our users throughout the world can connect with family and friends, and build community.”

All summer, Jessica watched these accounts brag about stealing more cars and amass more followers as more imitation accounts popped up. All the while, Instagram responded to her reports with the same form letter, in which it said it uses “technology to prioritize what our team reviews" and “we weren't able to review your report this time.” 

At the time Motherboard interviewed Jessica, the account she’d originally reported, ctkiaboyz, had been deleted after amassing 38,000 followers, although it was not the result of any of her reports. Recently, she has been reporting a new account, ctkiaboyz.part2, which had 11,300 followers and was still up at the time of the interview. That account disappeared the weekend after Motherboard mentioned it in an inquiry to Meta’s press team. The account also had a “backup” account listed in its bio in case it was deleted, and that account was deleted as well.

A Meta spokesperson told Motherboard “the flagged accounts were found to be violating our policies and were taken down” but did not answer a follow-up question about why the account was not taken down as a result of any of Jessica’s reports.

Meanwhile, Jessica’s searches on TikTok would yield much more limited results. Most of the top results for “Kia Boys” or similar wording are by people who have had their cars stolen. Of the few Kia Boys accounts that still exist, most have fewer than 100 followers and brief histories, potentially indicating a heavier hand of Whack-a-Mole moderation and constantly rotating accounts that get deleted before they can amass followers. Kia Boys accounts still exist on TikTok, but as of this writing, only one account shows up in search results that has more than 1,000 followers. 

But, on Instagram, a similar search by Motherboard yielded dozens of accounts with thousands of followers each.

As Jessica searched for Kia Boys accounts in Connecticut, she said that the algorithm started serving her up Kia Boys accounts in other cities. She reported them and posted on various subreddits asking people to report the accounts, too, hoping more reports would result in the accounts being taken down. But someone purporting to own one of the Kia Boys accounts messaged her with threatening language, so Jessica deleted the posts. (The Reddit account that messaged her has also been deleted.) 

Overall, Jessica estimates she has filed around 500 reports with Instagram for accounts or videos that clearly participate in the Kia Boys trend. Not a single one, she says, has been approved.

Part of the problem, Jessica thinks, is that the Kia Boys trend falls into a gap in Instagram’s reporting procedures for users. While the community guidelines plainly state “Follow the law,” they also never explicitly state that committing a property crime in a video is a violation. The categories that users can report accounts under include, spam, self-injury or eating disorders, sale of illegal or regulated goods, violence or dangerous organizations, and bullying or harassment, but nothing about auto theft or blanket unlawful activity, which is not allowed according to its Terms of Service.

Jessica usually reports posts under the rule banning “dangerous organizations and individuals,” which states that “we do not allow organizations or individuals that proclaim a violent mission or are engaged in violence to have a presence on Meta [which owns Instagram].” However, it is clear the rule is intended to target terrorist organizations, organized gangs, and “hateful ideologies” like Nazism and white supremacy. Motor vehicle thefts are generally not considered violent crimes. Carjacking is a more severe type of auto theft precisely because it involves the threat of violence, but the Kia theft trend almost by definition doesn’t involve carjacking, because it is a method of breaking into and hot wiring a vacant car.

When asked about these rules, a Meta spokesperson sent Motherboard a link to a Facebook “Transparency Center” page, which bans videos depicting theft, providing instructions on how to commit theft, or promoting theft, among other things. Motherboard asked how users are supposed to report those types of violations when there is no option to do so on the Instagram reporting page, but did not receive a response.

This is a stark contrast to TikTok’s guidelines, where Kia Boys videos violate two separate terms, according to a TikTok spokesperson. One prohibits “any violent threats, incitement to violence, or promotion of criminal activities that may harm people, animals, or property.” The other bans the “showing or promoting dangerous activities and challenges” such as “dares, games, tricks, inappropriate use of dangerous tools, eating substances that are harmful to one’s health, or similar activities that may lead to significant physical harm.”

It is impossible to say for sure that Instagram’s moderation policies have a direct impact on vehicle thefts. In Connecticut, where Jessica lives, there is not yet statewide vehicle theft data publicly available for 2023. Motherboard has filed public records requests for detailed Kia and Hyundai theft data from more than 130 cities through August, including three in Connecticut: Bridgeport, Hartford, and New Haven. Only New Haven has fulfilled the request. There, the Kia theft problem started in the fall of 2022 but escalated in the summer, around the same time Jessica was seeing the Instagram accounts post more frequently and grow in follower counts.

For her part, Jessica’s zero-for-500 record on reporting posts and accounts to Instagram has her thinking it is time to move on. “I'm ready to give up,” she told Motherboard. “I'm at that point where I don't think it's gonna do anything. And I just, I don't know. I'm over it.”