Privacy concerns after Instagram’s acquisition by Facebook

It’s the big tech headline of the week: Facebook has announced it is buying the popular photo-sharing app Instagram for a cool billion dollars.

But should Instagram’s 30 million users – who are reportedly uploading five million new photos to the service each day – have worries about the acquisition?

Certainly if you looked on Twitter when the news of the deal was announced earlier this week, you would have got the feeling that many Instagram users were less than enamoured by the deal.

It’s understandable that some people might feel some trepidation when their favourite online service gets gobbled up by a much larger player – even if Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been keen to stress that they don’t want to upset Instagram’s loyal fanbase.

One issue that some Instagram users have raised is privacy, and how their uploaded pictures…

Read more in my article on the Naked Security website.

Found this article interesting? Follow Graham Cluley on Twitter, Mastodon, or Threads to read more of the exclusive content we post.


Graham Cluley is a veteran of the cybersecurity industry, having worked for a number of security companies since the early 1990s when he wrote the first ever version of Dr Solomon's Anti-Virus Toolkit for Windows. Now an independent analyst, he regularly makes media appearances and is an international public speaker on the topic of cybersecurity, hackers, and online privacy. Follow him on Twitter, Mastodon, Threads, Bluesky, or drop him an email.

What do you think? Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.