Tommy Verhey: Hello everyone and welcome to where’s my privacy. My name is Tommy Verhey, a freshman at SPA, and I’ll be walking you through the privacy of your data on Instagram. Joining me today is Jack O’Brien and Nathan Cohen, both freshmen at SPA were here to tell us about their experiences and answer some questions focused on the privacy within Instagram. Please welcome our first guest jack O’Brien.

TV: Okay, so how do you use Instagram often and how much

Jack O’Brien: I use Instagram often like maybe three times a day, just go on to look at stuff,

TV: and about how many hours per day is up.

JOB: Maybe 20 minutes.

TV: So what do you like most about Instagram and what do you like least.

JOB: It’s just kind of cool to see what my friends are up to see some funny stuff.

TV: What do you not like about it? Is there anything you don’t like about it or do you like it all?

JOB: no I like it.

TV: Okay. So do you have any concerns about your privacy while using Instagram?

JOB: Sometimes you get these weird texts from people but otherwise no.

TV: Are you ever scared to post something with the thoughts that can spread to more people than you want to?

JOB: No, but I know that once it’s on the internet, it doesn’t really go off because you can see pictures on the internet that I printed off of a printer on the internet, which is kind of weird but no I’m not really scared about it.

TV: Do you ever think that someone that like you don’t want to see it will see your photo view like a stranger random person who’s not following you?

JOB: Probably.

TV: Have you ever been followed, or messaged by like a stranger or an odd person, who you don’t know?

JOB: Yes it happens quite often, which is kind of weird, but I just delete it and don’t respond… it’s usually spam.

TV: Thanks for that interview, Jack. Our next guest on today’s show is Nathan Cohen here to provide some of his thoughts on the topic of Instagram privacy.

TV: Okay, hello Nathan. So do you use Instagram often.

Nathan Cohen: I would say that I use Instagram regularly but not often because you know I
log on once or twice a day. You know, check the feed, get the stories and, you know, if I post and I post something like that. But I want to say I use it a lot, just once or twice a day.

TV: And what do you like most or least about the application Instagram.

NC: Well, I like that you can express your thoughts and opinions and post photos of where you have been stuff like that but I think that it’s a little bit redundant if people are posting a lot of photos of themselves. So you know I try to keep it. Oh, and I think that the you know the privacy isn’t like isn’t up to par, you know what I mean it’s subpar. It could be better but it’s still, it’s still good, but I think that it could be better.

TV: And do you have a story about a time that you felt your privacy was threatened during Instagram like Did you ever see a picture of on your posts on Instagram or like, just a random picture you want it on Google, or like a weird or strange dm or anything like that.

NC: Well, I’ve never seen one of my pictures on Google, but I also have them in looking for one of my pictures. So you never know it could be out there, but I have gotten a few interesting DMs from people I don’t know, and from possible viruses that I have subsequently clicked on and gotten virus from, but it is, you know, it is interesting to see that Instagram you know it tells you that it’s very private and secure by your account like I saw people like say their accounts got hacked like you know they DM me and say like, sorry for the DM like my account got hacked or something like that, like, you know it’s funny to see the redundancy of Instagram.

TV: Yes, indeed. So, just going off of that has, have you ever had an instance like that where your account has been hacked or anything like that.

NC: No personally I’ve not had my account been hacked.

TV: Thank you. Anything else that you would like, tell me about Instagram as an application.

NC: No.

TV: Thank you.

TV: Although Instagram is an application we all love and use very frequently, we can now see how it breaches the privacy of almost every user, just in one way or another. Although this podcast was mostly about data breaches through Instagram’s Direct Message or “DM” area,  it can still happen in many different ways… and it does. Stay safe on the internet, you don’t know where the stuff you put out there might go.

TV: To truly stay safe on the internet, never post anything you don’t want others to see, and never respond to, or let strangers follow you. Try to keep your personal information private… it’s better that way.

TV: Thank you so much for tuning in! We try our hardest to make sure that you absolutely love our content and material! If you are interested in your own privacy on the internet, you can listen to our podcast series, which includes podcasts from Aryun Nemani, John Becker, and Thomas Reinhart. From everyone on “Where’s My Privacy?” thank you for tuning in!

Listen to Episode 1, which addresses privacy on Google.