Private Instagram Posts Are Not So Private

 

Photos and videos posted to private accounts on Instagram and Facebook can be accessed, downloaded, and distributed publicly by friends and followers via source code

The hack — which works on Instagram stories as well — requires only a rudimentary understanding of HTML and a browser. It can be done in a handful of clicks. A user simply inspects the images and videos that are being loaded on the page and then pulls out the source URL. This public URL can then be shared with people who are not logged in to Instagram or do not follow that private user.

According to tests performed by BuzzFeed’s Tech + News Working Group, JPEGs and MP4s from private feeds and stories can be viewed, downloaded, and shared publicly this way.

“The behavior described here is the same as taking a screenshot of a friend’s photo on Facebook and Instagram and sharing it with other people,” a Facebook spokesperson told BuzzFeed News. “It doesn’t give people access to a person’s private account.”

But it’s not exactly the same. There is a difference between being able to screenshot a private image from a webpage and being able to easily publicly share the URL of that private image with un-authenticated users.

There is a difference between being able to screenshot a private image from a webpage and being able to easily publicly share the URL of that private image with un-authenticated users.

The hack also works when images and videos in a private Instagram story, which are meant to last for only 24 hours, expire or are deleted. Linking URLs to content from stories seems to be valid for a couple days; links to photos on the feed remain live for potentially even longer. The same is true for stories that have purportedly expired.

 

WIDESPREAD INTERNET OUTAGES !

A week ago Verizon caused a major BGP misroute that took out huge chunks of the Internet, including CDN company Cloudflare, partially down for a day.

Cloudflare went down again for half an hour yesterday, and this time, it was the company’s own fault— Javascript spiked the firewalls’ CPU usage, crippling throughput and causing widespread HTTP 502 errors. Microsoft’s Office365 also seems to have experienced a multi-hour partial outage yesterday, with the service working over some ISPs and routes but not others for about four hours.

Facebook and its properties WhatsApp and Instagram have suffered widespread outages relating to image display for most of today. The problem seems to be bad timestamp data being fed to the company’s content delivery network (CDN) in some image tags.

Twitter has suffered some as-yet-unexplained disturbances as well. The outages appear to be mostly in the Eastern United States and Europe, with few or no reports shown in other regions on several third-party outage-tracking sites.

Twitter DM outage spike on July 3, as shown at https://outage.report/twitter-direct-messages.

 

Instagram Reducing The Spead Of Inappropiate Posts

Scantily clad models and edgy memes will start getting fewer views. Now Instagram says, “We have begun reducing the spread of posts that are inappropriate but do not go against Instagram’s Community Guidelines.” That means if a post is sexually suggestive, but doesn’t depict a sex act or nudity, it could still get demoted. Similarly, if a meme doesn’t constitute hate speech or harassment, but is considered in bad taste, lewd, violent or hurtful, it could get fewer views.

Specifically, Instagram says, “this type of content may not appear for the broader community in Explore or hashtag pages,” which could severely hurt the ability of creators to gain new followers.

They have begun using machine learning to determine if the actual media posted is eligible to be recommended to their community. Instagram is currently training its content moderators to label borderline content when they’re hunting down policy violations, and Instagram then uses those labels to train an algorithm to identify.

 

Instagram’s Close Friends Stories

Instagram has now an option where users can create stories sharable to a close group of friends.The feature is called “Close Friends” and lets users post more “personal” stories only for their chosen followers to see. Users can add and remove followers from that list at any time.

This could create a bit of drama!

Instagram Beats Out Snapchat As The Most Used App Among American Teens

• Instagram has surpassed Snapchat as the most used app among American teens surveyed by the investment bank Piper Jaffray.
• The bank’s latest semiannual survey of teens found that 85% of respondents said they used Instagram at least once a month, compared with 84% who said they used Snapchat the same amount.
• Overall, Snapchat and Instagram were the two most used apps among the surveyed teens, with Twitter and Facebook trailing behind.
• The survey found that 85% of teens said they used Instagram at least once a month, while 84% said they used Snapchat at least once a month. This is the first time Instagram surpassed Snapchat in Piper Jaffray’s survey dating back to spring 2016. The company reported 1 billion active monthly users in June.

Instagram Will Use Artificial Intelligence To Detect bullying In Photos

Although the majority of photos shared on Instagram are positive and bring people joy, occasionally a photo is shared that is unkind or unwelcome,” Adam Mosseri, the new head of Instagram, said in a press release. “We are now using machine learning technology to proactively detect bullying in photos and their captions and send them to our Community Operations team to review.”

Instagram’s parent company, Facebook, also introduced its own anti-bullying tools this month. Those features allow users to remove “troll comments” from their feeds, with the options to delete or hide comments in “bulk” and report comments on behalf of the victim. Facebook has hired thousands of people to look over content that may run afoul of its rules.

New Research On Teens Suggest

Teens’ social media use has increased dramatically. Today, 70 percent of teens report using social media more than once a day. In 2012, that number was 34 percent.

Most American teenagers have a smartphone. The number of teens with a smartphone more than doubled since 2012, from 41 percent up to 89 percent. Looking at only 13- to 14-year-olds, 84 percent now have a smartphone, and 93 percent have some type of mobile device such as a tablet.

Facebook is out. Instagram and Snapchat are in. But you probably already knew this. One 16-year-old participant, when asked in the study whom she does communicate with on Facebook, replied, “My grandparents.”

Fifty-seven percent agree that using social media often distracts them when they should be doing homework. Overall, teens’ preference for face-to-face communication has fallen, while more and more teens are choosing social media and video-chatting as a favorite way to communicate.

Many teens seem to recognize that social media platforms are designed to keep them hooked. Seventy-two percent believe that tech companies manipulate users to spend more time on their devices.

Nevertheless, many teens say that using social media has a positive effect on how they feel about themselves. Teens were more likely to say that social media has a positive rather than a negative effect on how they feel (though most say it doesn’t make much difference one way or the other).

3. Recognize the importance of social-emotional learning (SEL).

Common knowledge tells us that teens’ social-emotional well-being is important to their overall health and ability to learn. But, the study reveals, it also has a big impact on how teens view their interactions on social media.

Bookstagram

Bookstagram

A community — comprised of proud readers, book stores, libraries, publishing houses, and more — has become an online safe haven for bibliophiles. The content has been considered beautiful and engaging, but the photos and captions work to inspire others to pick up a book in an increasingly digital era.

E Sagan

igreads

Trevino

Cosmetic Surgeons Say Patients are Requesting to Look Like Snapchat or Instagrams Touch-Up Photos

 

Three dermatologists from the Boston University School of Medicine and Boston Medical Center are worried over how people are increasingly adjusting their appearances in order to attain unrealistic standards of beauty.

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Cosmetic Surgeons Say More Patients Requesting To Look Like touched Up Snapchat & Instagram Photos

Plastic surgeons say patients are coming to them with selfies of themselves edited using the filters on Snapchat or Instagram and asking to look more like the retouched photo.

Researchers at the Boston medical center have authored an article in the journal JAMA Facial Plastic Surgery, which labels the trend “Snapchat dysmorphia” and argues that filters on apps are having a disastrous impact on people’s self-esteem.

Snapchat comes with a range of filters that immediately distort photos using artificial intelligence. They can make skin appear smoother, lashes look longer and bone structure appear more angular.

The report says these filters are sometimes triggering body dysmorphic disorder, a mental illness that leads to compulsive tendencies such as excessive beauty procedures, wasting hours obsessing over non-existent flaws and withdrawing from social activities.

This trend is really concerning to doctors because filters on Snapchat provide not just idealistic standards of beauty but entirely unhuman ones, presenting “an unattainable look and are blurring the line of reality and fantasy for these patients”, according to the report.

Separately from patients specifically trying to look like their selfies, over half of plastic surgeons also report patients saying that they are seeking procedures so they can look better in selfies, according to the report.

Airbrushed, unrealistic representations of women in fashion magazines have been blamed for the increasing incidences of eating disorders and body dysmorphia in women and teenage girls. Third-party apps like Line Camera and Facetune gave users easy tools to make their faces appear thinner, more symmetrical and blemish-free, before posting them to Facebook. 

The new report revealed that the kinds of facial surgery people are requesting has changed too. Previously, nose jobs were the most common request, but today people specifically want procedures that will have effects similar to selfie filters, such as nasal and facial symmetry, rhinoplasties, hair transplants and eyelid surgical procedures.

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 A photo of Frida Kahlo that Snapchat created for International Women’s Day in 2017, which was criticised for lightening her skin and making her features appear more symmetrical. Composite: Alamy & Snapchat

Instagram’s New IGTV Competing With You Tube

 

Video will be available through Instagram or a new app called IGTV. The initiative comes as parent company Facebook struggles to attract teens.  Instagram Chief Executive Kevin Systrom said he hopes IGTV will become as a hub of creativity for relative unknowns who turn into internet sensations with fervent followings among teens and young adults.

YouTube now has 1.8 billion users.Instagram, which Facebook bought for $1 billion six years ago, now has 1 billion users, up from 800 million nine months ago.More importantly, 72% of U.S. children ages 13 to 17 use Instagram, second to YouTube at 85%, according to the Pew Research Center. Only 51% of kids in that group now use Facebook, down from 71% from a similar Pew survey in 2014-15.

 

Instagram Opens New Office In New York

 

• Instagram recently opened its New York office, and plans to house up to 50 percent of its engineering staff there.
• New York allows a change of scenery for people in the Bay Area who want to relocate and could help Instagram to recruit from other talent pools, like people in finance.
• The company estimates it will have 350 employees by the end of 2018 in its New York office, including one-third of its engineering staff.II
• 

  Instagram’s Insta worthy NYC headquarters serves unlimited free booze and gelato   9:01 AM ET Sat, 16 June 2018 | 01:48

  

  Emmanuel Dunand | Getty Images

  Kevin Systrom, co‑founder of Instagram

  A New York presence also allows Instagram to recruit from different talent pools, including people who are in finance

 

Research Reveal Ways In Which Social Media Can Affect Your Mental Health

It Creates Unrealistic Expectations About Life

Things we see in places like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter—is often a window into exaggerated and even misleading versions of peoples’ lives.

People surveyed across the United Kingdom, Spain, France and Italy and found that over 66 percent of the people surveyed make posts on social media designed to make it look like their lives are more interesting and adventure-filled than they actually are.

52 percent of British people surveyed said they post pictures specifically to make their friends and families jealous. Self-images and self-worth are distorted until we realize we can’t live up to what we’ve created about ourselves on the Internet. It’s a vicious cycle.

It Makes Us Sadder

Studies are becoming increasingly clear: these “social connections” actually increase our mental anxieties and stress.

Another study conducted by the Young Health Movement and the Royal Society for Public Health surveyed found that 14 to 24-year-olds believe that social media is worsening bullying, body image anxiety, and feelings of depression and loneliness. Instagram was found to be the worst offender.

 

It Makes You Irrationally Jealous

Example

Ernie from high school that you never thought was going to go anywhere in life has somehow managed to make a living traveling the world and experiencing the finer things in life — all through a glorious set of perfectly curated filters.

And you? You work in an office. You get two vacations a year—every year—and you usually spend them in bed, hiding away from the world outside for a couple days. Ugh.

A study conducted last year by Kaspersky Lab showed that the more people use social media, the more jealous they become of their peers.

Ruined Relationships

A study from researchers at the University of Michigan examined the association between attachment insecurity and electronic intrusion (unhealthy stalking of peoples’ significant others using social media). The researchers found that, in high schoolers, higher levels of attachment anxiety (and trust issues) were associated with more frequent use of electronic intrusion. Meaning that the more you use social media, the more likely you are to be too far up your significant other—shocker—the less likely you are to trust one another.

It’s Highly Addictive

Its creators specifically designed them to be addictive.

 

Instagram Trends For 2018

The popularity of producing video content is expected to rise in 2018. And especially so with Instagram. You can expect to see refine Instagram stories and better video content. The prevalence of Instagram stories will only continue to increase.The Instagram stories feature is becoming popular in a variety of niche markets.

In 2018, we will see more influencers vlogging. Furthermore, with updates occurring in social media algorithms, video content will become important in building audiences and generating engagement.Video content is also important for business, companies and brands – not just influencers. They receive higher engagement rates and people tend to comment, like and share them more often. Whether it’s Facebook, Instagram or Snapchat, all these platforms provide the brands with an opportunity to generate video content that can be shared with followers immediately (ex. Facebook Live or Instagram Live Stories).

There will be Lots of influencers posing in a greenhouse, newsstands, at McDonald’s and sporting bob haircuts. This is after they have bathed in a tub full of flowers and sliced grapefruits. Ouch! grapefruit sounds a bit drying to me. Don’t forget  Glitter and sparkle.

 

Influencers on a variety of platforms are going to have to be a lot more transparent with their audience in 2018 selling.

Shopping Becoming More Popular On Instagram

Shopping on Instagram has now been available for some time now. It was first made possible in late-2016 when the platform introduced shoppable photos.

2018, we can only expect to see Instagram shopping. Shopify has been testing the feature throughout 2017, and the company notes that product tags are only visible to users in the US. Merchants can only sell physical products like food, books, clothing, toys, art, stationery, and electronics.

Hacked Instagram Numbers On $ale

 

 

Hackers established a searchable database named Doxagram allowing users to search for victims’ contact information for $10 per search. The hacker provided a list of 1,000 accounts they said were available for searching on Doxagram to the Daily Beast, and the list included most of the 50 most-followed accounts on the service.

 Doxagram was offline Friday @ 5:50 pm. It was unclear how or when it might come back. It’s also not known if Instagram would had sought to have the site shut down.

But even with the site shut down, contact information for dozens of celebrities now appears to be floating around on the dark web. A cybersecurity firm named RepKnight s found contact information for celebrities including:

• Actors: Emma Watson, Emilia Clarke, Zac Efron, Leonardo DiCaprio, Channing Tatum.
• Musicians: Harry Styles, Ellie Goulding, Victoria Beckham, Beyoncé, Lady Gaga and Rihanna, Taylor Swift, Katy Perry, Adele, Snoop Dogg, Britney Spears.
• Athletes: Floyd Mayweather, Zinedine Zidane, Neymar, David Beckham, Ronaldinho.

For celebrities and other high-profile users, the hack could mean having to change a phone number, email address, or both. But it can also be used along with social engineering techniques to gain access to the account itself. That seems to be what happened to Gomez, Instagram’s most-followed user. Her account was briefly taken down Monday after it was used to post nude photographs of Justin Bieber, her ex-boyfriend.

 

 

Instagram Gets Hacked

 

 

 On Wednesday, the Facebook-owned photo sharing app revealed that “at least one hacker” managed to steal personal information from a number of high-profile user accounts. Apparently, the breach was caused by a bug in the system, which Instagram says has now been addressed. They discovered that one or more individuals obtained unlawful access to a number of high-profile Instagram users’ contact information — specifically email address and phone number.  

Soon You Can Purchase On Instagram

US-based retail brands—including Kate Spade, JackThreads, and Warby Parker—will start posting interactive photos to Instagram and allow the items to be purchased in the featured image. Each image will feature a “tap to view” callout in the lower left-hand side; tap it to reveal the name and price of the products featured in the photo (Instagram supports up to five tags). Tap a tag to open a more detailed view in another window. If you want it just click “Shop Now,” at which point you’ll be redirected to a browser view, where you can add items to your cart and check out

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Instagram Making Is Changes

More here

U.S.States With The Most Road Rage

Instagram posts suggest people in Hawai’i are among some of the most heated in the country.

A recent study analyzing Instagram posts with the hashtag #RoadRage led researchers to name Hawai’i as the state with the worst road rage in the nation.

Auto Insurance Center conducted the research to unveil which states had the highest rates of road rage and when.

August was listed as the worst month for angry drivers, with a spike in #RoadRage posts during the month. July was the month with the second highest levels, based on the hashtag, while October and March followed.

#RoadRage appeared on Instagram more often as the week went on, according to the study, with Sunday having the lowest number of posts. The peak appears to be on Friday, with an average of about 10,500 #RoadRage posts nationally.

The analysis shows #RoadRage posts increase throughout the morning and into the lunch hour before peaking in the early evening, or rush hour.

Researchers note that one reason for the high #RoadRage tags on Instagram by Hawai’i users could be the recent ranking of Honolulu as the third-worst traffic in the country and one of 10 states popular for tourists.

Honolulu ranked as the 22nd city in the country when it came to road rage in the same analysis.

California ranked second for #RoadRage posts. The top state for tourism sees more than its share of out-of-state drivers, along with some of the worst traffic congestion in the country. New York, New Jersey, and Nevada followed.

Instagram To Start Rearranging Order Of Posts

Instagram announced it will begin rearranging the order of posts in its feed. Instead of the strictly reverse chronological, Instagram will order posts “based on the likelihood you’ll be interested in the content, your relationship with the person posting and the timeliness of the post.” This means that if you don’t check your feed until the next morning but a friend whose photos you usually Like posted something awesome the night before, it could appear at the top of your feed even if it is hours old. This is how Facebook’s feed works, and how Twitter recently reconfigured its feed to work.

Popular Hashtags That Get Notoriety

• #love—935,521,162 posts
• #instagood—492,227,830 posts
• #follow—344,839,954 posts
• #followme—333,892,281 posts
• #photooftheday—325,298,192 posts
• #happy—309,896,178 posts
• #selfie—285,984,443 posts
• #like4like—238,475,255 posts
• #fashion—225,145,244 posts
• #fun—220,529,12

Pew’s StudyConfirm That Facebook Users Are Getting Older

The study reveals that teens are finding  Facebook  “uncool” and in 2014 ,more than half of adults on Facebook were ages 65 and older. In addition, the study reveals that Facebook continues to be the most popular social media site.

Facebook Has Hashtags Now #

Facebook has hashtags and they work just like twitter”s hashtags. When you click on a hashtag in Facebook, you’ll see a feed of what other people and pages are saying about that event or topic. For example, #NBAFinals.
• Click on hashtags that originate on other services, such as Instagram.
• Compose posts directly from the hashtag feed and search results. The hashtag is a handy system for social networking users to join online conversations as events unfold in real-time, such as political debates, television shows and sports. When you see a hashtag in a post, you can click on it and see a feed of other posts from people’s profile and pages that use the same conversation marker. And it provides an easy way for advertisers to reach a particular audience.