In the News
Social media’s privacy blunders continue. In Instagram bug showed Stories to the wrong people, Josh Constine at TechCrunch discusses how an Instagram glitch showed user stories to strangers. Constine explains that these stories were of users that others did not follow, but Instagram’s privacy measures restricted the access of an individual viewing a given profile. Constine states that Instagram users whose profiles were set to private were not impacted.
Our Take
Social media is designed as a platform for sharing aspects of your life with friends and family. The fun part about these platforms is that you can choose whose account you can see and who can view your account. Technological glitches and data misuse threaten to remove the user autonomy of their social media experience and privacy. While it is reassuring to know that Instagram’s privacy measures restricted access of strangers to the accounts of the user whose story appeared on their thread, the reality is that users were still able to view the private experiences and lives of others without their consent. Making sure to keep privacy settings on your account such as setting your Instagram account to Private are easy ways to protect yourself from unfortunate glitches in technology platforms like the most recent incident with Instagram.
Recommendations
How can you protect the security and privacy of your devices and accounts?
- Understand the risks of putting your personal information into the world, and only share what you have to
- Be aware of default settings on social media platforms that automatically back up photos, files, messages, and other potentially sensitive information to the Cloud. Use privacy settings when they are available
- Refrain from sharing highly sensitive information through messaging apps and services
- Utilize additional security/privacy measures and settings on apps, accounts, and platforms whenever possible