Instagram’s Ethical Obligation

Recent years have made it clear that platforms wield significant power online. From Uber and Grubhub to Amazon, platforms have proven their worth through creating both utility and attracting a critical mass of users – something for which platforms should be applauded.

However, once we agree to the terms and conditions of a platform, we give up vast amounts of power and control while becoming its product. Furthermore, the balance of power is continually tilted in favor of the platform through opaque algorithmic changes, the continuous monetisation of user data, or in some cases even raw exploitation of members within its ecosystem.

Photographers’ social media exposure is most evident on platforms like Instagram, which has become so interlinked and influential that participating in them almost becomes necessary to reach the audiences they have laboriously built – audiences they don’t own like an email list would do. Of course, photographers don’t need to join Instagram but doing business in the 1980s without listing in Yellow Pages was difficult without at least some presence online.

PhotoShelter follows the standard language found on other photo sharing websites (including PhotoShelter ), so its language should come as no surprise. The company requires the ability to redisplay images across different mediums – for instance an Instagram Story post could appear both within its app and website without needing to gain additional consent every time it rolls out a new feature.

But one of Instagram’s features includes the ability to embed posts on other websites. Just as with YouTube, Twitter, TikTok and other social media platforms, embedding allows creators to reach beyond the confines of the walled garden; but embedding has proven an ongoing source of frustration among professional creators.

U.S. District Court Judge Kimba Wood issued her ruling against photojournalist Stephanie Sinclair, best-known for her “Too Young to Wed” photo essay which became a non-profit under that same name. Mashable offered Sinclair $50 in exchange for use of her image within their 2016 story entitled, “10 female photojournalists with lenses on social justice.” When Sinclair refused, Mashable embedded an Instagram image instead; upon rejecting, Sinclair sued knowing she could cite Goldman v Breitbart case law as her legal basis.

Mashable is a content farm whose goal is to produce content quickly in order to generate page inventory for selling ads; had Sinclair’s image no economic benefit for their story then they wouldn’t use it.

Mashable may be well known, but this article is about Instagram. Though Instagram was designed as a photo sharing platform, its primary function has never been to provide professional photographers with special treatment; celebrity and influencer content often drives its success instead.

Instagram doesn’t stand alone when it comes to helping creators protect their intellectual property, however. YouTube provides an effective solution: allow the user to decide if content can be embedded or not.

Users in general won’t care; their main objective is engagement (likes, comments) and reaching as many people as possible through different platforms. But content creators might need or want to restrict access for security purposes or just simply because they wish to manage who uses their material.

An easy fix would allow users to simply choose not to enable embedding. Instagram would then serve up a blurred version that can only be seen within their app, providing photographers with a link back to their Instagram presence without relinquishing their intellectual property without compensation.