---
title: "So, Yeah: Facebook Is Mining Your Instagram Photos, Too"
description: "Facebook's CTO revealed it's training a moderation AI by scanning billions of your Instagram pictures. Unsurprisingly, a lot of red flags went up."
date: "2018-05-04"
modified: "2018-05-04"
authors:
  - name: "Victor Tangermann"
    job_title: "Senior Editor"
    link: "https://futurism.com/authors/victor"
url: "https://futurism.com/facebook-mining-instagram-photos"
categories:
  - "Artificial Intelligence"
  - "Meta"
tags:
  - "facebook"
  - "instagram"
  - "mark zuckerberg"
  - "online privacy"
---

# So, Yeah: Facebook Is Mining Your Instagram Photos, Too

![](<https://futurism.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/fb-instagram.png>)
*\<em\>Image: \<a href="https://pixabay.com/photo-160307/" target="\_blank"\>Jens karlsson / OpenClipart-Vectors / Emily Cho\</a\>\</em\>*

Facebook is so ubiquitous it's sometimes easy to forget that it's reach spans much further than your likes, comments, and groups on its main platform.

Reminder: the tech giant owns Instagram and WhatsApp, too. And if you're a person that maybe doesn't like a company knowing every single thing about you, then, *surprise*! That's going to keep biting you in the ass for a while.

At Facebook's F8 developer's conference, CTO [Mike Schroepfer cheerfully revealed](<https://developers.facebook.com/videos/f8-2017/f8-2017-keynote-day-2/>) that the goliath media company has been scanning billions of photos posted to Instagram. The purpose: to teach artificial intelligence to identify "offensive content, spam, hate speech, fake accounts, fake news, clickbait, and more," automating a bit of what human content moderators already do.

In the aftermath of the Cambridge Analytica data scandal, and a [thrown presidential election](<https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/mar/26/cambridge-analytica-trump-campaign-us-election-laws>), some people are flipping out about this perceived violation of trust. UK tabloid the [*Daily Mail* warned](<http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-5684079/Facebook-says-selfies-dog-pics-used-make-Instagrams-AI-smarter.html>) users "you might want to think twice before you upload your next selfie to Instagram." [*ABC News* in Australia added](<http://www.news.com.au/technology/online/social/facebook-harvested-35-billion-instagram-images-without-warning-their-owners-until-today/news-story/0028c9a796facf5a08df40265d73c0e2>) that "even your selfies and brunch photos aren't safe from the long arm of Facebook."

And who could blame them? It's natural not to trust Facebook at this point. Even a [redundant dating platform](<https://futurism.com/facebook-dirt-help-find-love>) won't distract us.

But, honestly, the news shouldn't be all that surprising.

Under Facebook's ownership, Instagram's publicly-available data could be used for pretty much anything. Instagram's [terms of service](<https://www.instagram.com/about/legal/terms/before-january-19-2013/>) stipulates that while the service "does not claim ownership of any Content that you post on or through the Service," it *does* reserve full "royalty-free, transferable, \[...\] worldwide license to use the Content that you post on or through the Service" — that's pretty damn broad, and gives them a lot of leeway to do pretty much whatever they want with your photos, at least internally.

What *does* leave a bad taste in the mouth, however, is the lack of transparency. Were Instagram users informed their images were being harvested to train an AI? Do they really expect us to read the [4,890 words](<https://help.instagram.com/478745558852511>) of terms of service before posting any pictures of our Sunday brunch?

It makes sense that it's turning to AI to try to process some of the less-then-desirable content that shows up across its platforms. Over 2 billion users means a staggering amount of posts, pictures — and unfortunately, hate speech, fake news, and in rare instances, terrorist threats. Mo' users, mo' problems. Right, Zuck?

But until that AI tool is ready, humans are going to have to do the tedious job. Facebook is planning to double its "Safety and Security staff" [to 20,000](<https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-10-31/facebook-says-it-will-double-safety-and-security-staff-to-20-000>) as Zuckerberg testified to Congress. That's a pitifully low number, when considering Facebook's Sisyphean task of weeding through all that data. But taking advantage of the billions of public Instagram images — our well-groomed garden of #nofilter grams — to do so, with no warning? Well, let's just say users may be more likely to remember that Facebook, with all its privacy woes, still does own Instagram.

## Author
I've been at Futurism since 2017, where my role has evolved to encompass design, writing, and increasingly editing. I've always been fascinated by space exploration and advanced transportation, which I've leaned into by interviewing luminaries in those fields while closely following the dimensions of policy and regulation that allow next-generation projects to succeed -- or, sometimes, to fail. I'm also keenly interested in the effects of generative AI on society, policies, and democratic institutions, as well as clean energy, physics and biology, and the vagaries of tech leadership. My work for Futurism has been cited by publications including Ars Technica, Gizmodo, PC Magazine, Jalopnik, Fox News, and the New York Post. I spent my childhood living in locations including Manila, the Philippines, and Geneva, Switzerland, attended McGill University, and now live in Toronto, Canada. Before Futurism I worked at AskMen and a small photography studio. In my free time, I'm an avid gardener, foodie, and craft beer lover, as well as a maker of artisanal hot pepper sauces. I have a magnificent dog named Freida.

### Author social links  
[Bluesky](<https://bsky.app/profile/vtanger.bsky.social>)