
Instagram Morphs into an Information Powerhouse - elsewhen
https://www.axios.com/instagram-information-coronavirus-george-floyd-706d1ad3-9d6d-48d4-b085-3469a0d93b56.html
======
EForEndeavour
What an age we live in: the meteoric evolution of the information superhighway
has culminated in a Facebook-owned walled garden that retains its original
features as a photo- and video-sharing platform, and so delivers substantive
information as _pictures of text_ that cannot be copy-pasted or searched for.

The platform explicitly bans hyperlinking to ANY resource outside of
Instagram, except from the bio section of user accounts, forcing purveyors of
information to entice content consumers to follow the "link in bio," of which
there can only be one.

Users can "save" posts to custom-named "collections" within the platform, but
are intentionally prevented from exporting these collections, or indeed saving
any post to their local machine in its original format, short of
screenshotting in the mobile app, or using browser extensions or digging into
devtools on desktop.

You can't sort comments by anything. Time, votes (sorry, "likes"), length --
nope, you're stuck with whatever inscrutable, undocumented order "the
algorithm" has chosen to present to you, annealed out of some black-box
ranking procedure based on various engagement metrics.

You can't create comment threads: all levels of replies to a comment pile up
in the same indent level, forcing the reader to mentally build conversation
threads by reading username tags and scrolling up and down while repeatedly
clicking "view more replies." This undermines any hope of substantive
discourse about whatever serious issue is addressed by the seven-panel
meticulously designed infographic rife with unsupported claims, gross
oversimplifications, and handwriting fonts.

Oh, and roughly every fifth post or story is a paid ad, just to remind you
that you're the product. (Wherever the $7 billion and rising of quarterly
revenue is going [1], their comment-system team evidently isn't getting much
of it.)

Instagram becoming an "information powerhouse" is a slap to the face of
information accuracy, accessibility, and credibility.

[1] [https://www.statista.com/statistics/448157/instagram-
worldwi...](https://www.statista.com/statistics/448157/instagram-worldwide-
mobile-internet-advertising-revenue/)

~~~
pjc50
The thing is, it was never designed for discussion or politics - you might
almost say it was designed _against_ politics, especially by preventing
virality and focusing on images rather than text.

However, the normal venues for politics having been rendered unusable, it's
now become totalising; all communications channels will tend towards politics
all the time.

This will continue until either sanity is restored and the miscreants
permanently removed from the political arena, which seems very unlikely; they
win and get opposition effectively criminialised, which also seems unlikely
(although this is what happened in Hong Kong); or some exogenous event happens
like 9/11 and the country can unify against external enemies rather than
internal ones.

~~~
klyrs
> ...some exogenous event happens like 9/11 and the country can unify against
> external enemies rather than internal ones.

That never happened. Muslim and Sikh Americans, and anybody who could
mistakenly pass for them, north African or middle eastern, were treated as
internal enemies by the government, its private contractors and by "fellow"
american citizens. If you felt unity in that moment, then I surmise that
islamaphobia didn't impact your friends and family. I did not experience a
unified country after 9/11.

------
roystonvassey
I was invested heavily in Instagram as my active social media fix for two
years. This was spurred by a comment on HN and similar to what is mentioned
here - it was deemed to be a fun, positive and happy virtual party.

And it was. For a while. Soon enough, the advertisements and the activism took
over. People only posted in Stories, and the inevitable race-to-the-bottom to
have the highest followers/likes took over. A friend, who ran fitness gigs on
the side, told me how a top branded sports marketer were willing to sponsor
his shoes for a certain number of follows and likes on his post, with their
brand mentions. Somehow all these appears to be a perverted, caricature of an
idealistic life.

I got sick of it and i haven’t used it since the beginning of this year. I
understand that as I grow older, part of this is feeded by cynicism of having
seen similar patterns in the past, starting with IRC chat rooms to whatever is
the trend this year. But, the in-your-face commercialisation and incentives
for users to keep generating content forever all appears very dystopian to me.

~~~
iamkroot
I only use a third party app to browse Instagram, which both blocks
advertisements and stories. I keep the main app on my phone and only use it to
create posts of my own. Whenever I open it I'm amazed at the sheer quantity of
nonsense that's hurled at the user. I have no idea how people can put up with
it.

~~~
Ruthalas
What third party app do you use, if you don't mind sharing?

~~~
aspenmayer
I can’t say for sure what OP meant; I know there are Instagram+ type apps on
iOS and Android. There’s also this:

[https://github.com/cloudrac3r/bibliogram](https://github.com/cloudrac3r/bibliogram)

------
site-packages1
I've noticed this as well. I stopped doing any engagement on Facebook and
switched to Instagram (you don't need to tell me about who owns Instagram, I
already know) a years ago and really loved it. I do mostly post to Stories
because I had been using Snapchat as well and Stories filled the Snapchat void
but for a bigger audience (my Snapchats were never private or R Rated, just
the normal stuff people post to Instagram stories), and because I perpetually
feel like my stuff isn't good enough/important enough to post to main
Instagram. I feel like people can click and watch my stories if they want, and
I don't spam their feeds with regular Instagram photos.

Back to the current state of Instagram. People are nonstop posting stories
that are just Twitter screenshots, or walls of text, or both. You can click
through 20 of someone's stories and it's all just text.

I was never under any illusion that people posting perfect lives using certain
brands on Instagram were legitimate and so that's not new or disillusioning. I
largely ignore that and even de-rate brands I see on Instagram stories/photos
mentally. Other people on these comments posted about this, but largely that's
just rose tinted glasses, "viral" or sponsored advertisements in photos to
make it not look like it's an advertisement has been happening since insta-
time immemorial.

But, all the text I'm seeing, that's a major change and it's very annoying.

------
mikequinlan
I used to think that Twitter's 144-character tweets were the worst possible
way to present information. Instagram's `pictures of text` show that it is
possible to get even worse.

------
imglorp
Did they just go login only, to see content? No very powerful for me.

Also, maybe someone can explain to me why IG displays so much hate for the
user through the UX?

\- Fixed res images. If you dive into the JS, the full resolution is actually
present, but the UI scales it tiny with no way to see more. It's almost harder
to hide this than to just allow it.

\- Similarly video. No controls, can't pause or scrub or gosh forbid, closed
captions.

~~~
kccqzy
It's an "experience" designed by designers, not a power user tool.

~~~
site-packages1
Yeah, I really have to agree with this. Working with designers and PMs in my
day job makes it clear that there's an experience put together on Instagram
and it's not some Flickr alternative. Things are made to be fixed res and laid
out as so by design.

------
iamkroot
> Instagrams doesn't have a traditional share button to drive virality like
> other major social networks.

And that's a _big_ reason why it's the only social networking app I still have
on my phone. Please never change, Instagram!

------
throwawaysea
The main “feature” of Instagram was that it was free of politics, tribalism,
and the news cycle. Then came the activists looking to leverage the captive
audiences and the attention of their friend circles for their cause. This
change invited those of all causes and parties to participate, because to not
do so would be to accept a marketing disadvantage.

The political marketing war escalated quickly. Now Instagram has turned into
the same cesspool other platforms have - whether it is YouTube or Twitter or
Reddit or Facebook - with advanced campaigning, mass manipulation, etc. Like
Twitter, it suffers due to the limited format - images allow for a charged
newsbite and no nuance whatsoever. I’m starting to think any centralized
platform that is very open to the public or doesn’t ban politics will
ultimately decay once weaponized.

------
Melting_Harps
I don't use IG, nor any social media, and I have never had a desire to do so
but this statement underscores just how overtly and far reaching the term
'activism' is used these days:

> And then in the wake of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor's killings, it was
> primed not just for information, but activism.

Spamming peoples feeds or posts with your rants is hardly activism, it's
easily ignored/filtered is and never as impactful as if you actually got
active on the ground because you will NEVER get a true grasp of the situation
behind a keyboard--these situations are often wrought with confusion.

This is my main gripe with the so-called SJW forms of 'activism,' whose main
form of action is bringing about 'awareness' on social media platforms and
engaging in never-ending feuds Online that amount to nothing than a waste of
time and energy. And then if they do attend in person refuse to engage with
the parties they oppose in open discourse and will seek to 'cancel' the other
side. This has had so many dire implications, be it in academia to other
things like actors and their career prospects.

It's hard for me to think that people honestly think that posting about an
issue is as valid as actually being on the ground and involved in the process
in order to try and (ideally) come up with alternative solutions to the
problems they're trying to solve with those who have also come out to
manifest. In this case Police Brutality, that as unpopular as it might seem is
not solely limited to just the Black Community, but has been pervasive and
incredibly outward in heavy-handedness since 9-11 under these false pretenses
of Terrorism. People seem to forget that during the Occupy movement the same
amount of violence was being used against what were mainly a white, college
educated, (lower to mid) middle class cohort. They, too were deemed terrorist
groups and cells for dissent and were infiltrated by Intelligence Agencies.
[1]

And while I'm glad many people finally saw this for what it is, as this time
Police violence was used against journalists and innocent bystanders alike,
and in the case with Portland and Seattle you have unmarked vehicles
essentially kidnapping people, you get a real taste what activists of all
leanings have seen all along. I hardly see what some celebrity posting on IG
with a sign has to do with activism. Moreover, we saw how quickly they are to
retract it if they face scrutiny, during the HK's National Security Law limbo
Billie Eilish tweeted out a message in support of HK, only to remove it
moments later when the Wumao Army came down on her and she saw some backlash,
showing just how feckless and entirely pointless these kind of affairs really
are for even 'influencers.'

1: [https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/dec/29/fbi-
co...](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/dec/29/fbi-coordinated-
crackdown-occupy)

~~~
lifeisstillgood
Awareness _does_ matter, as does agreement in the same set of facts. And sadly
most people, celebrities or not, do not have the time for the deeper activism
you talk about and usually do not have the same mental model of what the
problem is if it exists at all.

And having gone through that activism in the UK back in day, from grassroots
meetings to media and then advocacy to policy makers, what really really helps
is a movement - ordinary people making a noise. And a noise on twitter is
heard in the corridors of power today (tomorrow it may change.)

So if you want something to change at a local or national level, social media
is a big part of your arsenal (but I agree not the whole part)

~~~
Melting_Harps
> And a noise on twitter is heard in the corridors of power today (tomorrow it
> may change.)

And is listened by who? Other social media users who are equally as unlikely
to get involved? This is what happened during the Blueleaks drop in my
opinion.

Moreover, what is the turn-around in the news-cycle today for even
'newsworthy' events, especially when calamity and Rage are the plats du jour
by the Media and served by the 100s a day.

I highly doubt you can attribute seeing police budgets get slashed if it
weren't for the mass protests, and rioting in the US and the wide-spread
violence we saw that followed. Claiming that Social Media's role to be
anything but act as a source of the real-time video footage of these events
would be really over-reaching its impact. I mean even now, as Portland has
removed DHS officers, what can you say the Social Media crowds did to ensure
that occurred, because it was mainly a collective of present Human will that
did that from what I've seen. I'm open to be convinced, mind you, as I think
IF Social Media could fulfill its potential it could be a very useful tool in
Activism, instead it just seems like another apparatus of the Panopticon.
Which if they can infiltrate a Telegram channel [1], just imagine what they
can do on open non-encrypted mediums like Facebook/IG etc...

1: [https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/a-dhs-intelligence-
report-...](https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/a-dhs-intelligence-report-
showed-the-department-had-collected-and-analyzed-messages-between-portland-
protesters-a-new-report-says/ar-BB17qOUb?li=BBnb7Kz)

~~~
site-packages1
The FBI has opened an investigation into Breonna Taylor's murder. The Redskins
are changing their name. Many police departments are cutting budgets and in
some cases replacing those police officers with social workers.

That never would have happened without the awareness brought to those and
similar issues by social media. You can dismiss it as "SJW" echo chambers, but
it appears to be working, perhaps to your chagrin.

~~~
Melting_Harps
> The FBI has opened an investigation into Breonna Taylor's murder. The
> Redskins are changing their name. Many police departments are cutting
> budgets and in some cases replacing those police officers with social
> workers.

How exactly is this the case; I keep seeing attributions to these events that
have no real basis or clear definitive metrics for doing it. I really want to
believe its true, but I'd say the potential of another wave of wide-spread
protests in the US (and Corona cases that follow) as what was seen for Floyd
is what did everything you mentioned with the exception of the Redskins name
change, which quite honestly is about as useful as Social Media 'change' can
really achieve in my view. Outrage culture can spill-over into entertainment,
and academia really well, as I mentioned in my earlier post.

~~~
site-packages1
> How exactly is this the case; I keep seeing attributions to these events
> that have no real basis or clear definitive metrics for doing it.

Sorry, what are you asking for metrics on? What are you asking, "how ... is
this the case?" These things have verifiably started happening or have
happened.

I really fail to see your point and am seeing enough watch words/phrases
("SJW", "Outrage Culture", etc.) where I feel like I"m being sealioned.

~~~
Melting_Harps
I'm asking you to provide a very clear and defintive way to measure what you
are describing, as in provide sources for your claims, which would be along
the lines of 'on x date poster Y made this post and as a DIRECT result of this
event this favourable action took place.' Its very simple to explain, but a
lot harder to understand from my position to see how exactly this takes place
without this. Because I can draw a straight line from the DHS being booted
after people did this [1].

That's what 65 days of continual activist protests did, that then resumed as
peaceful demonstrations for their cause only AFTER the DHS left. This could be
seen in other other BLM protest in major cities, that were escalated because
of Police.

> sealioned...

I don't even know what that means, but I fear this is the typical reaction
when someone is confronted with trying to substantiate such a bold claim and
cannot really do so, that is start to try and deviate from the points made
with entirely irrelevant sensationalism. I asked you to provide substantial
evidence for your claim.

1: [https://www.kgw.com/article/news/local/protests/portland-
pro...](https://www.kgw.com/article/news/local/protests/portland-protests-
federal-courthouse-friday-july-31/283-1a26f601-b6de-4ef8-b8b5-b6c21d67144f)

~~~
site-packages1
Ah I see, sealioning as below:

Sealioning - A subtle form of trolling involving "bad-faith" questions. You
disingenuously frame your conversation as a sincere request to be enlightened,
placing the burden of educating you entirely on the other party. If your bait
is successful, the other party may engage, painstakingly laying out their
logic and evidence in the false hope of helping someone learn. In fact you are
attempting to harass or waste the time of the other party, and have no
intention of truly entertaining their point of view. Instead, you react to
each piece of information by misinterpreting it or requesting further
clarification, ad nauseum. The name "sea-lioning" comes from a Wondermark
comic strip.

You are asking me to educate you when you could just look at current events.
If you're asking me to say "Protest X on Y date led to Z
legislation/budget/change" then you know that's impossible, and in fact I can
perhaps only think of a handful of times in U.S. history that this could be
done. One has to look at the totality of the circumstances. I can confidently
say, of course, that none of these changes would have happened without social
media awareness leading to protests leading to action, and the social media
awareness is close enough in the chain to be considered proximate cause. But,
based on your lines of questioning and inquiry in your other comments, I'm
guessing nothing will be able to convince you of this. See generally, from the
definition of sealioning, "involving 'bad-faith' questions."

~~~
Melting_Harps
> You are asking me to educate you when you could just look at current events.

Ok, I see we're going no where and we're at the pointing fingers for asking
the 'wrong questions' phase. I'll just ask one simple question then: for being
such a strong advocate of this system, which I still refuse to call activism,
have you gotten involved in this process and bring about change to your
community?

And if so, how? What are the impacts of your involvement, and how have they
been shaped and formed from your presence on Social Media?

Because if you saw the video I posted (specifically 2:52) you will see a Black
Mother advocating that her actual physical presence in the previously named
'Wall of Moms' protesting against Federal DHS agents and were beaten and
gassed as a result [1] is what will ensure that her children or grandchildren
may not have to do so in the Future. I'd argue that kind of resolve only comes
about when you are amongst like minded individuals, of all walks of Life, in
pursuit of a commonly held goal. A keyboard and a screen will never be a
replacement for that level of change.

It's not that I dispute that there are forms of 'Hactivism,' DDOS attacks
against Megacorps, things like the Panama papers/Blueleaks and Politically
aligned trading/shorting comes to mind, but its just that I fail to see how
that has anything to do let alone be achieved with what you've described thus
far.

1: [https://news.yahoo.com/wall-moms-sues-trump-
administration-1...](https://news.yahoo.com/wall-moms-sues-trump-
administration-191300114.html)

~~~
site-packages1
Hi, can you show me some metrics on the mother about whom you're speaking and
the claim that their "children or grandchildren may not have to do so in the
[f]uture." You seem awfully confident about that without any data to back it
up, despite asking me for metrics on a similar claim I made. I hope that helps
hold up a mirror to illustrate the difference between the burden of proof you
place on others and the (lack of) burden of proof you place on yourself for
the same things. (For the record I agree with the video, just illustrating the
disconnect you seem to be showing).

Past that, you're definitely conflating typing on a keyboard with lacking
resolve, and showing up with having resolve. I've been to plenty of protests
with people milling around on the outskirts not really doing anything, and
seen plenty of people bring the fire on social media.

Not that it matters for this at all, but because of social media I have become
aware of opportunities to go out and use my skills to observe and film
protests and that film has been used as evidence of police brutality that has
helped get officers doing brutalizing removed from their posts. I don't want
to get more specific than that here, and again it doesn't really matter for
the purposes of this.

~~~
Melting_Harps
> You seem awfully confident about that without any data to back it up,

The Civil Rights movement comes to mind, given that is the sentiment that MLK
was trying to promote and set it in motion, which subsequently made the US
Intelligence apparatus turn into what it is now, which we are clearly still
paying for to this day--and that's regardless of your skin colour.

Granted, this _did_ inevitably have to occur again, a quote from Jefferson
about Eternal Vigilance comes to mind, but it did advance the Rights of Black
People in the US from systemic segregation and being deemed less than Human as
an accepted cultural norm in the US back then to what is an (admittedly)
entirely flawed but far more progressive situation Today.

And that could only be done with wide-spread Civil Dis-obedience, physical
protests, and things like the March on Washington with MLK's 'I have a Dream'
speech that eventually LED to the Million Man March that took place in the 90s
as a result of the Civil Rights Movement for Black Americans back then, which
clearly has had a much bigger impact on Society than any of the things you've
mentioned thus far. You calling it 'Fire' or not is irrelevant to me, I just
want to see how your claim has had the positive effects in Society you've
mentioned as I'd ACTUALLY like to be proven wrong, and finally believe that
Social Media isn't just the (mainly State benefiting) Panopticon I fear it has
been since it's inception.

Also, it's worth noting that I'm not a Black History buff nor am I pretending
to be one, and to be honest while I think that's something that needs to be
addressed in the US I think this current situation encompasses something that
far exceeds that issue: I still contend that this situation is mainly about
indiscriminate and wanton State/Police violence due to the US having become a
Police State since 9/11 and it responding in the only way it knows how to.
Trump is a demagogue, but he is merely a symptom of the disease the US has
been incredibly afflicted by since 2001.

Corona, Unemployment and the subsequent Economic despair those things have
wrought have just magnified it for all to see, but these VERY SAME issues were
seen in 2008.

It was just easier to ignore if you weren't directly affected by it, but they
were there: in fact the H1N1 pandemic occurred in 2009, which the US was
mainly spared from, and had severe consequences in many other places in the
World.

> Not that it matters for this at all, but because of social media I have
> become aware of opportunities to go out and use my skills to observe and
> film protests and that film has been used as evidence of police brutality
> that has helped get officers doing brutalizing removed from their posts. I
> don't want to get more specific than that here, and again it doesn't really
> matter for the purposes of this.

Ok, see that just re-enforces my initially stated point that it can serve as a
repository for video footage of State-sanctioned violence, which has merit,
but has very clearly defined limitations:

> Claiming that Social Media's role to be anything but act as a source of the
> real-time video footage of these events would be really over-reaching its
> impact...

Using that footage to get involved in your local community's political affairs
to justify 'de-fund' the police, and reducing their budget, would be the
logical and more productive outcome of that footage.

Because in case you ever wondered what happens to those 'removed' police they
often get paid administrative leave in most cases and 'disciplined' only to
come back to their positions later on, or if its severe (as in they killed
someone) they just get relocated to another precinct as they have some of the
most entrenched Unions in the US that lobby for these accommodations--consider
the officer charged with killing Floyd had a long History of violent
complaints [1] against him prior to that murder. It happened in many cases of
fellow activists and even my own where we 'won' our cases against the
Police/Sheriffs departments showing them to be unjustifiably belligerent and
unfit for their appointed duties/role in Society only to see them be re-
appointed.

You have a chance to do more now more than ever I just hope more People decide
to really get involved during this very limited opportunity. In fact, it's
these critical moments in History that kept me optimistic while we were
getting slammed and handcuffed onto the hoods of cop cars, or be illegally
detained and interrogated for hours for non-crimes. I guess that's the part of
me that just can't hide my disappointment if the bulk of People who can act
just choose to speak in echo chambers Online instead of actually getting
involved.

1: [https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/05/us/minneapolis-officers-
backg...](https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/05/us/minneapolis-officers-background-
george-floyd-trnd/index.html)

------
agumonkey
It's funny how fads + web = information now. It used to be a transient thing,
now it's stored and analysed ad nauseam (I suppose).

------
melbourne_mat
So much hands wringing these days about TikTok - a Chinese company which might
pass information to the Chinese government.

The big silicon valley tech companies hoover up your data. What could possibly
go wrong? Affect the outcome of a democratic election with targeted
advertising?

------
propogandist
they're using follower growth on a few accounts to come to this conclusion,
which suggests these people have no idea what they are talking about.

Follower count is a vanity metric, engagement rates, view through rates and
similar metrics would be more meaningful to analyze, along with actual reach
data.

