Will posting a viral message stop Instagram from using your pics without permission?

Many celebrities worldwide were taken for a ride last week when a popular hoax message about Instagram started doing the rounds. However, many of them deleted their Instagram posts later, after the message was debunked.

The message said that Instagram has a change in its privacy policy empowering the social media company to use our pictures without our permission. “Even messages that have been deleted or the photos not allowed,” stated the message indicating that even protected accounts will lose the privacy of their images. It also said that even the messages that the user sent and then deleted will be public. “I do not give Instagram or any entities associated with Instagram permission to use my pictures, information, messages or posts, both past and future. With this statement, I give notice to Instagram it is strictly forbidden to disclose, copy, distribute, or take any other action against me based on this profile and/or its contents,” read the message.

The message claimed that one Channel 13 spoke about this change in rules and further urged the users to share a copy of the message on their Instagram page.

This viral message was busted as a hoax by the chief of Instagram Adam Mosseri who, in his Instagram story, said that the message that Instagram was changing its rules is not true. Instagram has also confirmed to various other media houses that there was no truth to this message. An Instagram spokesperson told CNN that there is ‘no truth’ to these viral messages.

Though this particular message has been busted as fake news by the social media company, Instagram has indeed been at the receiving end of flak from users and privacy researchers worldwide due to its privacy terms. Instagram’s present Terms of Use says that though the platform does not get ownership over the information shared on it, it has the right to host, use, distribute, modify, run, copy, publicly perform or display, translate and create derivative works of your content, in line with the user’s privacy settings. This means that Instagram probably has all the rights to use the pictures that we post in any manner it deems fit.