Skip to main content

State of the Web: Why I’m NOT quitting Instagram

Why I’m NOT quitting Instagram
Image used with permission by copyright holder

The fiasco that is Instagram’s terms of service just won’t die. On Monday, former Engadget editor in chief, and co-founder of Gdgt, Ryan Block penned an op-ed for The New York Times’ Bits blog entitled “Why I’m Quitting Instagram.” Block not only “suspended posting photos” to Instagram, where he had “almost 9,000 followers,” but also dropped Facebook, which of course now owns Instagram.

In making his account deletion public, Block hopes to make the point that “[w]e’d all be much better off simplifying our technological footprints and consolidating our trust in the few services that provide us the greatest value with the fewest unintended side effects.”

Block’s declaration follows a similar protest from Wired’s Mat Honan, who announced that he had “nuked” his Instagram profile within hours after the company’s fateful terms of service announcement – a position to which he held strong even after Instagram recoiled with an apology for the “confusion” over whether it would or would not sell users’ photos.

Block and Honan are apparently far from the only people who hold a grudge against Instagram: mobile application analytics firm AppData reported this past weekend that some 3.5 million Instagram users – about 25 percent of its total user base – deleted their profiles upon learning that the photo-sharing company could sell the use of their photos without permission. (Instagram later refuted these claims, saying that the number is much lower – and that 2.3 million new people joined the service during the same period.) Regardless of the exact numbers, it’s clear from the collective response that people don’t like their photos or data being used without their consent, as Instagram’s (and Facebook’s) terms of service still allow it to do, despite revisions to the document.

Like any other privacy-minded Web user, I applaud Block and Honan, and share in their discontent. But I’m still not deleting my Instagram or Facebook accounts – even though my principles clearly tell me I should – for one simple reason: These companies have already won.

Advertising and, as a result, data collection, form the foundation of the online economy. To make a lick of difference in how nearly every major Internet company – not just Instagram and Facebook – treat user data, we would have to stop using the Web entirely, and rebuild the whole tower from scratch. Simply deleting a profile or two does next to nothing to protect our online selves. And while you could install a privacy-protection browser plug-in, or use Tor or a VPN, such efforts appear to have zero effect on the ways in which online companies do business.

The idealist in me imagines a day when legions of the Web population suddenly realize that we’ve been had, that we are not simply users – we are the ones being used; then we all join in clicking the “delete” button. The companies will cower in the face of our wrath, and abruptly apologize for whoring us out to the highest bidder (or any bidder at all). From then on, they’ll ask for our permission for everything. It’ll be grand, I tell you. Grand!

This day is, of course, never coming. We know we’re being used, and most of us don’t seem to care – the morsels we get for turning over our lives to online services, apps, ad companies, data brokers, and multitudes of other “third parties” taste too delicious to reject them. Meanwhile, the Internet advertising business continues to boom. Silicon Valley keeps pumping out future Mark Zuckerbergs. And we sit increasingly glued to our ubiquitous screens.

My instinct tells me to scream and stomp and bang frying pans together every chance I get in an attempt to convince my fellow users that this privacy stuff matters, and the services we helped turn into wealthy businesses that we users should be respected by default – bottom lines be damned. But for now, at least, I am admitting defeat: Privacy does not matter to most of us, apparently; the companies clearly do not care.

So rather than join Block and Honan in their futile act of consumer disobedience, I’m throwing in the towel, then taking a picture of it, slapping on a sweet filter, and posting the photo all over the Web for everyone to see.

Editors' Recommendations

Andrew Couts
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Features Editor for Digital Trends, Andrew Couts covers a wide swath of consumer technology topics, with particular focus on…
How to change your language in Google Chrome on desktop
Chrome OS

Google Chrome supports a wide range of languages. While it'll default to English in most cases, there's nothing stopping you from changing its settings and displaying pages in Spanish, French, or dozens of other languages.

Changing your default language in Chrome takes only a few seconds, and the technique used is the same across Windows and Mac. Aside from changing your language, note that Chrome now gives you the option to automatically translate pages written in another language – making it easy to read content from around the globe.

Read more
23 of the best Netflix hacks, tips, and tricks
The Netflix home screen.

Netflix is one of the most popular streaming platforms for all things movies and TV shows. Home to an immense library of titles, the Netflix archive is constantly changing and evolving, and so are the many ways you can use your Netflix account. 

For instance, did you know you can access region-locked Netflix shows and flicks by using a VPN? Or that you can disable that pesky Autoplay feature? There are tons of Netflix hacks, tips, and tricks out there, so we’ve gone ahead and rounded up all of our favorites! 
Expand your streaming with a VPN

Read more
How to make a GIF from a YouTube video
woman sitting and using laptop

Sometimes, whether you're chatting with friends or posting on social media, words just aren't enough -- you need a GIF to fully convey your feelings. If there's a moment from a YouTube video that you want to snip into a GIF, the good news is that you don't need complex software to so it. There are now a bunch of ways to make a GIF from a YouTube video right in your browser.

If you want to use desktop software like Photoshop to make a GIF, then you'll need to download the YouTube video first before you can start making a GIF. However, if you don't want to go through that bother then there are several ways you can make a GIF right in your browser, without the need to download anything. That's ideal if you're working with a low-specced laptop or on a phone, as all the processing to make the GIF is done in the cloud rather than on your machine. With these options you can make quick and fun GIFs from YouTube videos in just a few minutes.
Use GIFs.com for great customization
Step 1: Find the YouTube video that you want to turn into a GIF (perhaps a NASA archive?) and copy its URL.

Read more