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Instagram Will Soon Let You Download a Copy of Your Data (techcrunch.com) 22

An Instagram spokesperson has confirmed to TechCrunch that the site will soon let users download a copy of what they've shared on Instagram, including their photos, videos and messages. The new data portability tool could make it much easier for users to leave Instagram and go to a competing image social network. It will also help the site comply with the upcoming European GDPR privacy law that requires data portability, assuming the feature launches before May 25th. From the report: Instagram has historically made it very difficult to export your data. You can't drag, or tap and hold on images to save them. And you can't download images you've already posted. That's despite Instagram now being almost 8 years old and having over 800 million users. For comparison, Facebook launched its Download Your Information tool in 2010, just six years after launch. We're awaiting more info on whether you'll only be able to download your photos, videos, and messages; or if you'll also be able to export your following and follower lists, Likes, comments, Stories, and the captions you share with posts. It's also unclear whether photos and videos will export in the full fidelity that they're uploaded or displayed in, or whether they'll be compressed. Instagram told me "we'll share more details very soon when we actually launch the tool. But at a high level it allows you to download and export what you have shared on Instagram" so we'll have to wait for more clarity.
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Instagram Will Soon Let You Download a Copy of Your Data

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  • It isn't "your data". You gave it to them. You are only getting a copy.
    • Re:"Your" data? (Score:4, Informative)

      by goombah99 ( 560566 ) on Wednesday April 11, 2018 @05:22PM (#56420565)

      "your data" != "Data about you"

      As we just learned from Zuckerberg, the term "your data" is facebooks way of saying that while you can have a copy of the data you uploaded you cannot see the permanent record of data they collected on you.

      As for instagram I beleive they actually save the electrons that were used to send the data to them. This way when you request access to your data, then can send them back to you. So you really are getting back your data not a copy.

  • works to save from either Firefox or Chromium. What does "tap and hold" even mean?
    • They seem to use javascript to disable the menu elements of the right click. I'm not sure how they do that but you can't just right click and save the image.

      • It used to be an option in Firefox and IE (I believe) whether or not you wanted to allow sites to fuck your context menu.
        I always turned that shit off. That's my context menu. Fuck your site thinking it should control my context menu.

        Sometime back, FF made it impossible to turn off (as far as I know - it's certainly not a user-facing option anymore).

        You can do still shift + right click to get your context menu back on shitty fucking sites and "web apps", however.

        • Doesn't really work well to do that. looking at the source takes a long time to find the place in a page long div element that might possibly be the image and there's no way I see to save it when you find that other than copying it into a new windlow and loading it.

          • I'm referring to getting the real right click back. Shift + Right Click does it.

            As for finding the actual element, right click and inspect element should take you directly to the element you right clicked. If the page has layered and positioned things shittily, you can use the search function in the inspector. Anything that appears as a link (such as src="whatevers") you can CTRL+Click on to open in a new tab.

            If you still can't find what you need, you can right click and do View Page Info. From there, g

  • by DogDude ( 805747 ) on Wednesday April 11, 2018 @05:27PM (#56420601)
    If you believe that Facebook is going to voluntarily give you their core product for free, please contact me. I have a *great* investment that you might be interested in. This bridge is used by tens of thousands of people a day, and would be a great addition to your portfolio.
    • the core of facebooks data is not the data but application of the data. follow the money.
      • the core of facebooks data is not the data but application of the data. follow the money.

        Absolutly, how else could they monetize it? We don't need congressional hearings to know that these platforms are collection nodes for complex user data into a Big Data Cloud to get crunched by guys who read Soylent News in their spare time.

        By the way, what the fuck is an "Instagram Star"? I see in the news that an "Instagram Star" was killed in a small plane crash. Help me out, I don't do Instagram, do they just post millions of pictures of them doing whatever it is that fills their lives? Eating at posh r

        • An Instagram Star is someone that submits many Instagram Messages that several Instagram Readers read. At some threshold, Instagram rewards the Instagram Writer with money. Is this a great planet of what.
  • You still can't bulk delete images with Instagram which is a royal pain in the bottom.
  • It's nice that all these sites are giving users access to their data, but what about non-users?

    Don't pretend that there is no data to disclose, the targeted emails trying to entice me to sign up because my friends have accounts are a dead giveaway.

    • Bingo.

      Pretty much anything related to non-user data transparency from any corporation, particularly social media platforms, will generate an "input out of range" error on any basic Bullshit Detector.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Why is such data stored on servers in the first place. Such data should be stored locally and only accessible to those you share it with and only stored on their local machine. This centralized everything stored in the cloud paradigm violate the decentralized nature of the Internet.

"The pathology is to want control, not that you ever get it, because of course you never do." -- Gregory Bateson

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