Guest Post: Are Instagram Stories As Safe As You Think?

By Eseohe Ojo on March 2, 2020 | Tagged with , , ,

Guest Post: Are Instagram Stories As Safe As You Think?

By Priyaa Sathiyaseelan

In the year 2006, Time magazine chose the People of the year to be You – to recognize the millions of people who anonymously contribute user-generated content to Wikipedia, YouTube, Facebook, and the multitudes of other websites featuring user contribution. Because without the data that we put out there, the internet would not be what it is today. Each day, 95 million photos and videos are being uploaded on Instagram and 350 million posts on Facebook. But other than recognition from Time magazine, is there anything we get? 

Yes, we do. For the content we share, we get gratification in terms of likes, comments and recognition, and that is almost instantly. This instant gratification is what encourages people to post their photos and videos. On the flip side, while we are caught up in this frenzy of sharing, we often end up leaving tons of our photos out in the online world, making our personal data available to strangers and susceptible to misuse. This instant gratification one derives from social media comes at the cost of privacy. But all that seemed to change in 2013.

In 2013, when Snapchat came up with the novel method of time-sensitive sharing (ephemeral content) through stories, everybody turned to it. Knowing that your content disappeared after a specific time period meant data privacy fears reduced, thus increasing gratification. This also removed some inhibition from users who would otherwise not actively use social media. Users’ active participation is crucial for any successful site and statistics have shown that ephemerality ensured that. So naturally, Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp followed suit and incorporated 24-hour stories/statuses. (Stories in Snapchat, Instagram and Facebook and statuses in WhatsApp)

In their research paper Snap. Share. (Don’t) Care? Ephemerality, Privacy Concerns, and the Use of Ephemeral Social Network Sites, Tina Morlok, Kerstin Schneider, Christian Matt and Thomas Hess studied the effects of two determinants of ephemeral social network sites (ESNS), specifically Snapchat: perceived enjoyment (what we’ve been referring to as gratification) and privacy concerns. After a comprehensive online survey that gathered 463 responses, they found that perceived ephemerality affects individuals’ social media usage by counterbalancing privacy concerns; and thereby increasing perceived enjoyment. This finding wasn’t something new, it complements existing literature which suggests that ephemerality is linked with positive emotions and that the specific characteristic of ESNSs (i.e. time-constricted data) may lower users’ concerns.

To validate the findings of this research qualitatively, I talked to five people who used ephemeral content with varying levels of active participation. Though it was expected that they would be having lower privacy concerns, it was surprising that none of them even gave a thought about privacy concerns while posting stories/statuses. I wanted to understand this mentality and investigated further. 

On further prodding, I found that the reason they started using ephemeral content is not for its secureness, but because it gave them more exposure and subsequently more enjoyment. Another interesting finding was how they decided what qualified as a post or a story. 

  • To them, posts were serious matters. They had to be chosen with careful consideration. 

“This was going to be on my account permanently (unless I deliberately chose to delete it). Do I want it to portray what it reflects now even after 10 years?”

  • Stories could be anything, a passing thought, an opinion, a politically controversial meme that you currently find funny. 

“They will be gone tomorrow, so why care what I put out there?”

You can notice that people’s privacy concerns are lowered when talking about stories because they are certain it will self-destruct within a day. This makes sharing uninhibited, without any qualms.  

It’s important to remember that this isn’t as secure as you think, your content can still be screen shot or screen recorded. Unlike Snapchat where the concerned person is notified when someone screenshots their content, Facebook-owned social media platforms don’t have that feature. Even having that feature doesn’t necessarily mean your photo is secure. Your data is still vulnerable to privacy attacks. And by lowering perceivable privacy concerns, people let their guard down when it comes to sharing stories. This might result in them posting controversial, unsafe content that might affect them when they least expect it.

I’m not asking you to stop posting. 

All I’m asking you is to bear this in mind the next time you post a story. Stay aware and stay safe!

References

Featured Image: Instagram Social Media Symbol from geralt Used Under Pixabay License

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