I hate Instagram. At least I hate the fact that no matter where I turn Instagram is there, shovelling lo-res filtered images into my eyes.
Whether its a photo of someone’s dinner, a cup of coffee, a pint of beer, a child, a mirror, or more recently a Christmas tree or a door on an Advent calendar, it just does nothing for me.
I suspect that my dislike for the photo-sharing site stems from my general cynicism towards vast proportions of ‘social media’ as a whole. Most of the time shared content is unoriginal, boring and seemingly fuelled by everyone’s desire to be the coolest hipster in town.
But that’s just my opinion. Rant over.
Whilst browsing through my Twitter feed earlier today I was delighted interested to discover that there might be some respite to my Instagram nightmare.
The site has updated its privacy policy, which in a nutshell gives it the right to sell users’ photos to third-parties without any prior notification or approval. The only way users can opt out is by deleting their accounts before the deadline on January 16.
Despite the mass uproar from Instagram fans across the web this announcement doesn’t come as a huge surprise.
Instagram was acquired by Facebook for £616 million back in April, and the web-giant has made no secret of its plans to to monetise the site ever since. And why wouldn’t it? with over 80 million users uploading 5 million photos to the site daily (source: Huffington Post), there’s money to be made one way or another.
BBC likened the move to a suicide note, and if the recent trend in Twitter discussion is anything to go by, then that sounds about right.
So Instagram fans, you have a decision to make – sell out or ship out.
