The first time I signed up to Instagram it all felt a bit too good to be true. Here was my chance to take photos of dreary life in dreary Bristol being all dreary when suddenly this braisen of fantasical filters was upon me and suddenly I could take photos of things and put borders on them – life had no limit. However, there was always that sour taste in my mouth that one day some bastard would get ahold of Instagram and turn it into a lifeless money making whore. Things started to turn towards the bad when the delightful photo sharing tool managed to draw my attention to horrible rich kids posting faggoty receipts of night’s out when they’d spent £100,000 on the same champagne that Lil’ Kim bathes in or some shit…but that was not the end of Instagram’s apparent fall from grace as soon enough it had joined the Zuckerberg empire when the Facebook mogul bought it out for an astounding $1 Billion. That’s Doctor Evil kind of money.
The warning signs were certainly there and even Facebook Vice President of Global Marketing Carolyn Everson came out earlier in December and said, “Eventually we’ll figure out a way to monetise Instagram.” At the time I thought this was fair and to be expected but had no idea what exactly the Social Network had in store for the Instagram userbase.
The privacy policy has been updated as of today and it now gives Instagram and thereby Facebook the right to sell users’ photos to advertisers without notification or monetary reward in any way – however – they have given the Instagram public until 16th January to opt out.
Not as simple as that thought as opting out means you in fact delete your Instagram account, entirely.
Instagram have tried to pass it off as it being an easier way to merge your Instagram account with your Facebook as well as helping fight spam, detect system errors and ensure reliability – which all sounds pretty good until you read about half way down the new terms of use as it states:
“To help us deliver interesting paid or sponsored content or promotions, you agree that a business may pay us to display your username, likeness, photos, in connection with paid or sponsored content or promotions, without any compensation to you.”
After a lot of uproar was caused across the internet so Instagram then came out in order to ensure people that the policy would not change how it handles photo ownership or who is able to see a user’s pictures…which is fine except you might suddenly see yourself in an advert sat on top of a camel endorsing sunbeds without your knowledge.
BBC reported that there has been several complaints and one Instagram user tweeted:
“Good bye #instagram. Your new terms of service are totally stupid and nonsense. Good luck playing with the big boys.”
Where another user described the whole process as “Instagram’s suicide note.”
I’m sure it isn’t as bad as some internet users are making it out to be though with one poindexter describing this as a way for the Government to “keep checks on you and hand over your photos to Russian spies…#nobodyissafeanymore” In all fairness it probably just makes it easier for creepy old men to find photos of you and decorate your room with them – however – this probably would’ve happened anyway as creepy old men are persistent to say the least.
Apparently their reasoning for getting this through now is down to the fact that they want to make this possible before regulations catch up with them and start telling them to stop fvcking with people. Facebook have done it many times and I’m sure they will continue to do it – as it allows them to get themselves into a position where its harder to fvck with them – who in all honesty as ever really read their facebook T&Cs or the Apple iTunes T&Cs every time they update that shit? I get pissed off enough when everytime I tweet some stupid shit my phone wants to tell the world exactly where I am – I could be in a whorehouse getting a blowjob and tweet that I’m off work ill. There goes my job, which granted is shit anyway, but I need money to pay for other things – please see previous sentence. What about if my mum reads that shit? She doesn’t follow me on Twitter but it could happen – couldn’t it? Should probably stop going to brothels on a Thursday morning. That might be the answer. Certainly should stop Instagramming with hookers though…although that might make for an interesting tumblr feed.
Follow AMJ @amjeezie
