Read the article, not just the headline. ;)
"A few months ago while tagging my wife “at”Kathleen on Instagram I noticed her username was no longer displaying as “@kathleen”, but rather “_____kathleen”."
The account was renamed.
Re:They say “nothing will change”
by blueicelt2004 on Wednesday April 16, 2014 @12:36PM
(#7598794)
You must have stopped reading before "and told her about it"
Rendering someone's content inaccessible without any means to get it back is outrageously insidious. It violates the implied social contract you have with your users. It's gross.
This would be just about tolerable had they renamed it – preserving all of her social network links – and then told her about it. Frustrating and possibly even humiliating, but at least not actually destructive.