A comprehensive guide to Instagram - Designed by Kimberley Eichmann for assignment purposes for NET303 Internet Politics and Power at Curtin University.

1. Policy Primer
A COMPREHENSIVE GUIDE TO INSTAGRAM
DESIGNED BY KIMBERLEY EICHMANN
FOR NET303 INTERNET POLITICS AND POWER
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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What is Instagram?
 The primary purpose of Instagram is for photo sharing, where users can
“follow” other users and be “followed”.
 Users can “like” and comment on each other’s posts, which can be short
video clips, as well as photographs.
 As of September 2017, Instagram has reached 800 million monthly active
users, up from 200 million in December 2016 (Statista, 2017).

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Key Features
 Instagram has diversified to now include a direct messaging function, allowing
users to privately message.
 Instagram also introduced a story feature in August 2016, similar to that of
social media competitor, Snapchat – Instagram users can now upload images
or video content to their “story” which is only visible for 24 hours (Newton, 2016).
 Instagram utilises “hashtags” where users are able to tag their posts with
specific keywords or phrases, this then adds the user’s post to a collection of
posts which include the same hashtag – Users can utilise up to 30 tags on
each post, meaning the post can be found in 30 different page locations
(Instagram, 2017A).

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Joining Instagram
 Unlike other social networking sites, Instagram is a mobile application – While
users can access the application, view, and comment on posts from a
desktop device, sharing photos and video content can only be done through
the mobile application.
 Users download the application and create an account using an email
address or phone number – Users can also log in with Facebook, signing up
with their Facebook account (Instagram, 2017B).
 According to Instagram’s ‘Basic Terms’, you have to be 13 years old to use
the Service (Instagram, 2017C).

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What do users agree to?
 When joining Instagram users agree to:
 Terms of Use
 Basic Terms
 General Conditions
 Rights
 Disclaimer of Warranties
 Limitation of Liability; Wavier
 Privacy Policy
 Platform Policy
 General Terms
 Brand Assets
 Things You Should Know
 Community Guidelines

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Which look a little bit like this...
< This here is just…
 Terms of Use
 Basic Terms
Users still have all of this to read…
 General Conditions
 Rights
 Disclaimer of Warranties
 Limitation of Liability; Wavier
 Privacy Policy
 Platform Policy
 General Terms
 Brand Assets
 Things You Should Know
 Community Guidelines
(Instagram, 2017C).

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The chances of anyone reading all of this are…
Therefore, users need to
know the key points…

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Privacy
 Users can control the visibility of their profile, and subsequently, who can
see their posts. Users do this by setting their account to “private” with
only approved followers able to view, like, and comment on their posts –
This is not the default setting, so users must set their profile to private in
their account settings.
 No matter a user’s visibility on the site, Instagram will collect information
about you, and use this data to inform the content which is visible to
you…

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Privacy
 And the big one…
 No matter how the user has set their privacy settings for their profile,
the Service itself can track exactly where you are…You don’t even
have to be using the app…If your phone Location Services are on,
Instagram knows where you are (Instagram, 2017D).
 Users can prevent this by turning off their Location Services on their
device.

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“…the networked nature of social media means
that individuals’ experiences with their data are
consistently imbricated with others”
(Marwick & boyd, 2014, p. 1052)
 This leads to the next section on ‘Data Retention’…

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Data Retention
 Instagram collects a variety of information from users:
 Names, email addresses, and phone numbers;
 Data on how people use Instagram – Collected through “cookies”
placed by either Instagram or third-party advertisers; and
 Analytics from third-party advertisers on what websites users are
visiting in addition to Instagram (Identity Guard, 2016).

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Data Retention
 And…The BIG one…METADATA!
 Metadata is quite simply the term used to describe other data within
a certain item’s content (Christensson, 2006).
 Instagram uses the metadata from user’s posts, such as hashtags,
geotags or user comments, to target specific content to user’s and
as a way of informing what sponsored material a user will see (Identity
Guard, 2016).

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 As Instagram states within the Privacy Policy…
 “Instagram or other Users may run contests, special offers or other
events or activities (“Events”) on the Service. If you do not want to
participate in an Event, do not use the particular Metadata (i.e.
hashtag or geotag) associated with that Event” (Instagram, 2017D).
 In other words…There are measures users can put in place to
decrease their chances of being targeted by sponsors, third-party
advertisers and other users by limiting their use of metadata on their
posts.

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Copyright
 Who owns the content users post on Instagram?
 The user! But…
 By posting content to Instagram the user grants the Service some
very broad license rights: “a non-exclusive, fully-paid and royalty-
free, transferable, sub-licensable, worldwide license” (Bowan, 2015).
 This means Instagram has the right to use any of your photos for
free, for any reason, anywhere in the world, and can also grant these
rights to a third party (Bowan, 2015).

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Copyright
 What happens when a user thinks their copyright has been infringed?
 Users can report a copyright infringement to Instagram by
completing a report through a form on their website or via email.
 Instagram can then choose to remove the reported content – When
they do this they notify the user whom they are removing the content
from and also provide them with the contact information including
name and email address of the user who has reported the
infringement (Instagram, 2017E).

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What does this all mean?
 Users should use Instagram with caution:
 Know that the information you provide to join the Service and the content you post will be
used to inform what you see, and provided to Instagram’s third-party affiliates.
 You can control who sees the content you post through your account settings, but know
that Instagram will still use and store your metadata.
 Instagram does not own your photographs, but they can use them without telling you and
give rights to third parties to use them without your consent.
 Instagram will notify users of changes to the ‘Terms of Use’ but not to changes in the
‘Privacy Policy’ so it is the user’s responsibility to check in with these conditions.

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References
Bowan, N. (2015). Who owns your Instagram content? Retrieved from http://www.socialmedialawbulletin.com/2015/01/who-owns-your-instagram-
content/
Christensson, P. (2006). Metadata definition. Retrieved from https://techterms.com/definition/metadata
Identity Guard. (2016). What you need to know about Instagram’s privacy policy. Retrieved from https://www.identityguard.com/news-
insights/need-know-instagrams-privacy-policy/
Instagram. (2017A). How do I use hashtags? Retrieved from https://help.instagram.com/351460621611097
Instagram. (2017B). Creating an account & username. Retrieved from https://help.instagram.com/1642053262784201
Instagram. (2017C). Terms of use. Retrieved from https://help.instagram.com/478745558852511
Instagram. (2017D). Privacy policy. Retrieved from https://help.instagram.com/155833707900388
Instagram. (2017E). Copyright. Retrieved from https://help.instagram.com/126382350847838?helpref=page_content
Marwick, A. E., & boyd, d. (2014). Networked privacy: How teenagers negotiate context in social media. New Media & Society, 16, 1051-1067.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1461444814543995
Newton, C. (2016, August 2). Instagram’s new stories are a near-perfect copy of Snapchat stories. Retrieved from
https://www.theverge.com/2016/8/2/12348354/instagram-stories-announced-snapchat-kevin-systrom-interview
Statista. (2017). Number of monthly active Instagram users from January 2013 to September 2017 (in millions). Retrieved from
https://statista.com/statistics/253577/number-of-monthly-active-instagram-users/

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Images
Memecrunch. (2015). Slim to none. Retrieved from https://memecrunch.com/meme/AG54G/slim-to-none
Pixabay. (2016). Instagram symbol. Retrieved from https://pixabay.com/en/instagram-app-social-media-1372870/
This Guide has been created for assignment purposes for NET303: Politics, Power and
The Internet at Curtin University. The content featured in this Guide is being used in
accordance with the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth) under “fair dealing” whereby copyrighted
content used in this project is being used for the purposes of “criticism or review”.
Further information on this clause is available here.