I looked at facebook while eating a bowl of cereal and saw a new feature story: your friend X liked N photos on Instagram.
And that was a slap.
Here were these photos—arguably public, but put into a pool that feels semi-private—which were now appearing on the timeline and newsfeed of people who like them. Photos as content. Likes in the app turned into shares on the site.
And that was the end for me. I’d never expected, considered, or intended that life for the pictures I’d put into Instagram. So, I opted out.
First, I used Instaport.me to download the pictures. Then I deleted them from Instagram, one-by-one, thereby removing those pages on the web as well.
Were there specific images I wanted locked up? No. But that’s not the point.
Today I woke up to a long-overdue lesson about privilege, privacy, and safety.
Public inside a closed system is different than public in an exposed one.
Not at a data level, nor in a legal way, nor one that can be made explicit. But definitely different in comfort and expectations.
I’ve deleted the pictures. I don’t plan to put any more into the system.
I’ve just requested a copy of my Facebook data. I think I’ll delete everything there that’s older than about last week. Funerals. Births. Loves. All of it. In this rare moment, I can see the system for what it is, and I do not want its benefits.
Matt asked “What kind of privilege are you referring to, here?”
The kind where I think things all work the way I want them to and never change and that I get everything and no one else does. Which is, frankly, a pretty significantly invisible one I needed to have burst.
I’m only giving up on a luxury; one to which I was addicted until today.
http://instagram.heroku.com/users/maxfenton
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Followup, three weeks later: http://www.exquisitetweets.com/collection/maxfenton/1725
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