Hell hath no fury like an Instagrammer scorned. As most of you know by now, on Monday, Instagram announced some new Terms of Service that sparked quite the cyber chaos. The controversial new ToS (which, to me, seemed to be a rewording of the old terms) outlined that from January 16th, 2013, Instagram will be free to commercially use your pictures, essentially being able to share (sell) your content to third party advertisers and to its parent company, Facebook.
This anoncement led to an Instagram user revolt, as many vowed to close their accounts due to the breach to their privacy. Even celebrities flocked to their social media outlets to denounce Instagram for the situation. And in their usual manner of responding to scandals, angry users joined together in hashtag action, sending off thousands of #BoycottInstagram tweets. Users were already seeing their filtered duck faces and burger snaps plastered on the sides of buses. Many resorted to using sites such as Instaport and Instarchive, which allow you to bundle up all your images into a zip file that you can download to your computer, where your pictures will always (hopefully) be safe. After retrieving all their content, many users deleted their accounts and bid farewell to any trace of their Toaster-ed images.
So how did Instagram respond to all of this? Well…they didn’t. At least not until after 24 hours of ignoring all news organizations and user complaints.
Yesterday, Instagram co-founder, Kevin Systrom, took to the Instagram blog to explain that the intentions of the new ToS had been misleading, and some clarifications were in order. He assured the masses of outraged, pitchfork-baring InstaUsers, that the company has no intention of selling their pictures.
From the start, Instagram was created to become a business. Advertising is one of many ways that Instagram can become a self-sustaining business, but not the only one. Our intention in updating the terms was to communicate that we’d like to experiment with innovative advertising that feels appropriate on Instagram. Instead it was interpreted by many that we were going to sell your photos to others without any compensation. This is not true and it is our mistake that this language is confusing. To be clear: it is not our intention to sell your photos.
In his post, Systrom made it clear that Instagram does not own the rights over your photos, and that the content you post remains yours. He also mentioned that if your account is set to private, Instagram will only share your photos with those that you have approved to follow you.
In clarifying how Instagram plans to use your content, Systrom said:
Let’s say a business wanted to promote their account to gain more followers and Instagram was able to feature them in some way. In order to help make a more relevant and useful promotion, it would be helpful to see which of the people you follow also follow this business. In this way, some of the data you produce — like the actions you take (eg, following the account) and your profile photo — might show up if you are following this business.
These plans sound very similar to some the advertising steps that Facebook has taken, by which it uses content that you post and like to create sponsored stories. This should come as no surprise considering the fact that Facebook recently acquired Instagram for an approximate price of $736.5 million (with Facebook’s current stock prices). Instagram, along with its 5 billion photos shared so far, are now in the control of Facebook. So what do people expect from a giant social media platform whose thirst for expanding has caused it to start catering to the far-reaching grasp of the advertising sector. Do we really expect the content that we post to these platforms to be fully ours? And are we really not already seeing the intrusive future of social media?
Let’s be honest. Leaving the social media world (not necessarily Instagram) is the worst move you could make in today’s world. Especially if you’re a young and bright mind searching for a job in the communications industry, where employers seek people with social media skills and know-how. So, unless you’re really planning to put social media behind you (good luck!), here’s the most important tip to follow:
USE SOCIAL MEDIA TO YOUR BENEFIT. Enough with the status updates and tweets about what color wall you’re looking at or what you’re having for dinner. Using social media to promote yourself as a brand will help you gain skills that will be very useful in a communications career. I understand the need to communicate with friends using social media, but why not use your friend base to spread word of your new blog post or career-oriented activities? Sure, social media platforms might be using your content commercially, but why not give them something worthwhile to use? Examples of social media put to brilliant use lie in celebrities, believe it or not. Publicists push their celebrity clients towards embracing social media in order for them to continue promoting themselves. There’s nothing quite like a fan feeling like he’s that much closer to Rihanna because her blunt-rolling pictures show up on his feed. Be smart and use social media to promote yourself in the most beneficial way possible. And unless you’re Rihanna, maybe try omitting the blunt-rolling pictures. Continue reading
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