Instagram and the Internet’s ‘Secret’ Places

[Commentary] Are the golden days of Instagram over? Instagram is by no means private. Like Twitter, Instagram operates under a strict binary. Either all photos are public and accessible to anyone who follows you, or they are private and visible only to the select few you give permission to view your feed. But the service’s seeming remoteness — the app was limited to smartphone users, and there was no built-in way to copy or repost pictures — lent it a sense of privacy and intimacy, separate from the rest of our online lives. Its ability to let its users delicately toe the line between public and private gave us a little breathing room from the all-pervasiveness of Facebook, and to see it whisked away feels like a tangible loss. The sale of Instagram brings a harsh reality into focus, the realization that the secret rooms or private spaces online where we can share, chit-chat and hang out with our friends are fading. The few safe havens that do exist are quickly being encroached upon or are next on the shopping list for a company like Google, Apple or Facebook. The few proposed alternatives are still in their infancy. And it is clear that our personal data and online interactions are so valuable that they are powering the Web’s future.