Tags: instagram

“Link In Bio” is a slow knife

For a closed system, those kinds of open connections are deeply dangerous. If anyone on Instagram can just link to any old store on the web, how can Instagram — meaning Facebook, Instagram’s increasingly-overbearing owner — tightly control commerce on its platform? If Instagram users could post links willy-nilly, they might even be able to connect directly to their users, getting their email addresses or finding other ways to communicate with them. Links represent a threat to closed systems.

Anil Dash on the war on hyperlinks.

It may be presented as a cost-saving measure, or as a way of reducing the sharing of untrusted links. But it is a strategy, designed to keep people from the open web, the place where they can control how, and whether, someone makes money off of an audience. The web is where we can make sites that don’t abuse data in the ways that Facebook properties do.

Manton Reece - Saying goodbye to Facebook cross-posting

Facebook and even Instagram are at odds with the principles of the open web.

Related: Aaron is playing whack-a-mole with Instagram because he provides a servie to let users export their own photographs to their own websites.

Frank Chimero · A Like Can’t Go Anywhere, But a Compliment Can Go a Long Way

A thousand likes doesn’t look much bigger than one, and this becomes important when considering the form of negativity on social media.

There is no feature for displeasure on social media, so if a person wants to express that, they must write. Complaints get wrapped in language, and language is always specific.

Why These Social Networks Failed So Badly

Ignore the clickbaity headline and have a read of Whitney Kimball’s obituaries of Friendster, MySpace, Bebo, OpenSocial, ConnectU, Tribe.net, Path, Yik Yak, Ello, Orkut, Google+, and Vine.

I’m sure your content on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram is perfectly safe.