{"id":3642,"date":"2012-12-19T10:58:56","date_gmt":"2012-12-19T18:58:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fwdlabs.com\/blog\/?p=3642"},"modified":"2012-12-19T11:05:06","modified_gmt":"2012-12-19T19:05:06","slug":"instagram-used-the-wrong-filter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fwdlabs.com\/blog\/instagram-used-the-wrong-filter\/","title":{"rendered":"Instagram used the wrong filter"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"

Image by @antjan. (Used with her permission. Because it would be wrong to use it without her permission.)<\/p><\/div>\n

In case you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been living off the grid the last couple days, Instagram (now a wholly owned subsidiary of Facebook Inc) released new terms and conditions. Buried deep within this 6,000 word document was new language allowing them to use your photos however they wanted and for commercial gain, without your permission. This caused a blogosphere\/social media universe firestorm of biblical proportions. Users were rightfully pissed off, felt manipulated, used and duped. Facebook and Twitter were overrun with promises to shut down accounts, file for divorce and bring in the National Guard. The terms and conditions aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t going into effect until January 16th, but its never too early for some righteous indignation posted on Facebook for your like-minded friends to share and commiserate. <\/p>\n

I was struck by the intensity of the public response. (Though I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re wrong \u00e2\u20ac\u201d just possibly a bit overheated.) Taking a long, deep breath I read all the posts and delved into the mainstream media\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s coverage, looking for some \u00e2\u20ac\u0153fair and balanced\u00e2\u20ac\u009d reporting. Here are a few thoughts, for what they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re worth:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. What was Instagram (slash Facebook) thinking? Did they actually think that no one would read through the entire (intentionally murky) document? That we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d all be too busy wrapping presents, too drunk on egg nog to notice? How would you feel if that charming photo of your beloved Grannie wound up as the centerpiece of a campaign for adult diapers? Or that oh so embarrassing photo of you slumped over the bar on St Patrick\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Day was used to advertise erectile disfunction? Let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s call this whole episode what it is: an epic PR fuck up of the highest magnitude.<\/li>\n
  2. Instagram as its widely used today is kind of a joke. 99% of the users post endlessly self-indulgent, amateur photos of their cats, sunsets and the all-too-infamous \u00e2\u20ac\u0153selfies.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d You know you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve really made it when the parody video goes viral.<\/a> (Take a look. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s actually funny and manages to satirize Instagram AND Nickelback at the same time.) Nowadays everyone is the manager of their own brand identity, their own personal VP of Marketing. Here I am at this fabulous concert. What an amazing vacation I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m having. Jealous yet? But so what. Who cares. Don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t follow them. Curate what you choose to look at and respond to. In our day-to-day lives we are saturated with imagery, most of it bad, but of course you can choose to ignore most of it. Are you really concerned that all the servers storing those billions of images will shut down the power grid?<\/li>\n
  3. I have to say I actually like Instagram and use it all the time for work. Somehow, without my noticing, Instagram became a visual diary of my life, a photographic record of my friends, family and meaningful events. And for someone with a notoriously faulty memory this is an indescribable gift. But equally importantly, Instagram has become a source of inspiration and reference for my assignments as an art director and photo editor. Many of the people I choose to follow are talented photographers, and many of them are producing extraordinary work on their iPhones and sharing it daily. I would suggest that in a few cases this personal, off-the-cuff work is stronger and more profound than their assignment work. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m actually hiring photographers because of their Instagram work. I\u00e2\u20ac\u009dm seeing depth and quality that I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t always see on their websites. And for this reason I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d be sad to see all of you immensely talented photographers bail. You know who you are!<\/li>\n
  4. I have to ask: What did you think would happen when Facebook paid ONE BILLION DOLLARS to buy a company with five employees? Of course they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re going to monetize their investment. No one ever confused them with a non-profit. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not when, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s how, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the problem. Had Instagram changed their Terms of Service in a transparent, public way, clearly stating the changes, and promising to only use your images if you gave the company permission (and possibly offered a modest fee) all of this drama could have been avoided. So, what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s happened since the day before yesterday? Instagram is backpedalling as fast as they can. The bad PR is lethal. And users are abandoning ship like its the last voyage of the Titanic. Ultimately the terms will be modified, well before January 16th, and you can decide whether you can accept the contract. Your call. If you don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t believe me you can read it in The Paper of Record<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    So, here\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s my Modest Proposal. Don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t export all those beautiful photos to Flickr quite yet. Take a deep breath. Sit tight. See how this all plays out. You can always bail in mid January, just as I might do if they don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t make the terms equitable. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m an optimist: maybe we won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t plunge off the fiscal cliff, maybe they will ban assault rifles, and maybe, just maybe we can all still keep our Instagram accounts \u00e2\u20ac\u201d because I know you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d hate to miss that really meaningful picture I took of my cat.<\/p>\n

    (Originally published at chessdesign.tumblr.com<\/a>.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    In case you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been living off the grid the last couple days, Instagram (now a wholly owned subsidiary of Facebook Inc) released new terms and conditions. Buried deep within this 6,000 word document was new language allowing them to use your photos however they wanted and for commercial gain, without your permission. This caused a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3642","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-design","category-web"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fwdlabs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3642","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fwdlabs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fwdlabs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fwdlabs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fwdlabs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3642"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fwdlabs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3642\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fwdlabs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fwdlabs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fwdlabs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}