Governance - What You Gotta Adhere To

Governance

Instagram provides a standard terms of service like any other media sharing website. There are of course, basic requirements and restrictions ranging from:

• ·   Must be at least 13 years of age to use
• ·   May not post violent, nude, discriminatory, unlawful, infringing, hateful, pornographic or sexually suggestive photos or other content via the service
• ·   You are Responsible for the activity of your own account
• ·   You cannot “sell” the account
• ·   Must not defame, stalk, bully, abuse, harass, threaten, impersonate or intimidate people or entities nor post private or confidential information with the service and that is just to name a few (InstagramHelpCenter, 2015).

Thus at Instagram's discretion,violation of these terms may result in termination of one's Instagram account. It’s also noted that the company is not responsible for the content posted on the service and that you use the service at your own risk.

Instagram isn’t out of the loop when it comes to the controversy of the terms of service like any other major social network.  On December of 2012, Instagram who at this point is owned by Facebook, was in the spotlight about the controversy of their new terms of use. To sum it up, Instagram can share information about its users with its parent company Facebook as well as outside advertisers. That means it will let advertisers use data and information from users who have shared on Instagram such as details of favorite places, bands, restaurants and like Facebook, target those ads to those users (Wortham, 2012).

An even more compelling note is you could star in an advertisement, without your knowledge. The new terms of service indicates that Instagram does not claim ownership of any content that you post, instead you hereby grant Instagram a non exclusive use of the content you post. Even underage users are not exempt. If a teenager signs up, it is assumed that the parent or guardian is aware that there image, username and photos can be used in ads and claim responsibility (Wortham, 2012). 

In the end, it's no surprise Instagram has some backlash during its short history. Regardless, consumers continue to use and enjoy their services despite some of the privacy and questionable terms we have to agree too. If a user wants to remove all ties with Instagram, they do have the option of deleting their account (Shanklin, 2012).