After reviewing everything Facebook, Instagram, and Google knew about me I was in shock that for this long I had no idea that I had the rights to see what they were tracking from my account with my own eyes. I decided to stick with Instagram since this app, especially now, is something I use way more frequently. To start, the part I enjoyed was getting to see my prior “bio” posts and prior usernames. It was fun to think back and remember the time when I used a different username other than just my name. Now I think that probably is not the most practical way for people to look me up and find me. However, did get me thinking, maybe this is a good thing? No future employers, professors, or relationship partners can use your account and your basic freedom in this country against you, that is in my case.
When diving a little deeper into this “Account Data” I was also able to see the users I have blocked, Instagram polls I have participated in, and even my Ad Interests. The ‘Ad Interests’ is what stood out to me the most and that had me the most shocked. Instagram has a list of hundreds of different companies and/or specific people’s brands that I have an interest in. This had me the most interested mainly because I had no idea we were able to see what Instagram thinks we would like. Things like fragrances, jewelry, shoes, hip hop music, Rihanna, and even comedy movies were a few that were listed on my interests. After I found this out, I went straight to google. According to Rachel Kaser who wrote the article titled “How to see what ads Instagram thinks you’ll care about” states, “These interests are pulled from accounts you follow, pictures you’ve liked, and other ads with which you’ve interacted”. Which reminded me of a certain algorithm in which Facebook originally started out with.
I began to think about the broader economic incentive throughout these ads and people marketing certain products. For Instagram, they profit off of the businesses or companies who want to advertise themselves by selling an advertisement slot. For example, the company EZ-Grow’s purpose is to help you gain followers and likes to essentially create more visibility for their clients, which according to Instagram guidelines is not allowed. However, Instagram has not followed its guidelines because EZ-Grow still spends about $500 per day for ads on its app in hopes to receive new customers. (Constine). According to the article “Instagram caught selling ads to follower-buying services it banned“ by Josh Constine, he states that these associated accounts state things like “get more followers”, “get verified”, and/or “engagement automation” all of which are against Instagram’s guidelines and tightly linked to their policy-violating services. Constine then states that
“That casts doubt on just how hard Instagram was working on this problem. It may have simply relied on cheap and scalable technical approaches to catching services with spambots or fake accounts instead of properly screening ads or employing sufficient numbers of human moderators to police the network”.
After considering this it brought me back to their broader economic incentive and how Instagram is using me and my account to store all of my interests to then put it on my feed get me to purchase these specific items. I also realized they are using my account and millions of others, to produce and provide more ads which is an ongoing, continuous, and never-ending way to make money. Since Instagram has over a billion mobile phone users accounted for 88% of its ad revenues in 2017. Whether I am just scrolling passed an ad or it is something I am interested enough to click on, regardless, I know now that I am technically helping Instagram pay their bills.
Constine, Josh. “Instagram Caught Selling Ads to Follower-Buying Services It Banned.” TechCrunch, TechCrunch, 15 Jan. 2019, techcrunch.com/2019/01/15/dont-buy-instagram-followers/.
Kaser, Rachel. “How to See What Ads Instagram Thinks You’ll Care About.” The Next Web, 30 Aug. 2019, thenextweb.com/basics/2019/08/30/instagram-ads-list-interests/.
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