Insta-Spam? : An Analysis of One of Instagram’s Anti-Spam Strategies
Article: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/06/business/media/instagram-bots.html?ref=topics
As one of the largest and fastest growing social networks, Instagram has drawn a massive commercial following over the past few years. While Instagram provides an ad-sponsorship program that commercial accounts/companies can pay for, many other accounts have chosen a different path using non-Instagram affiliated companies. These companies, including Instagress, PeerBoost, InstaPlus, etc., log-in to commercial accounts and go on comment-liking-posting sprees for a certain fee. These activity sprees are intended to draw attention from other accounts seeing the activity of the commercial account. Many complaints have arisen from this practice, as these Instagram-Influencer accounts comment sometimes at random on other commercial and individual accounts. One example of these complaints came from an art account owner, who claimed that all of the comments on her posts were “empty”, as they had all been made by the Instagram-Influencer companies through their clients accounts (See top of article posted above for an example). Instagram has been making strides to ban any accounts that use these Instagram-Influencer to create a more wholesome, real environment on the social network.
This article ties into the idea of Triadic Closure proposed in class and on the most recent homework assignment. As ads and influencers try to intervene or comment on a plethora of different dissociated accounts, they make very few mutual connections with the sources they comment on. The lack of mutual connections makes the comments and likes these accounts post more easily identifiable as spam. By not forming a bond between a mutual friend of the spam receiver, the account that posted the spam comment violates the Strong Triadic Closure Property, failing to form a complete triangle with the spam receiver and a mutual friend of the spam receiver. As a result, Instagram can pick out accounts that use this kind of spam strategy on a regular basis to “ban them” from the social network, as stated in the article above. It is important to note that this is not Instagram’s ONLY strategy for picking out spam, but one that is used and is effective.
Although not called the Strong Triadic Closure Property in the article, it is interesting to me to see how the information taught in lecture directly applies to everyday life. Using the same strategies taught to us in class and through our homework, social networks including Instagram are able to identify and remove spam, making for a more human, realistic experience while using the social network. However from this, more questions are raised. Is it suitable to allow commercial accounts to use “spam” to spread their account throughout the network so long as they do not use Non-Instagram affiliated influencer companies to do so? In my own opinion, they should be allowed to do so, so long as the activity is not intrusive on other individuals posts. For example, if the company trying to spread its follower count posts a productive, relevant comment on the post (such as a constructive comment on an artist’s post), then that account should not be banned. However, if the account in question posts something completely irrelevant with the purpose of attracting people away from the spam receivers original post, then that account should be suspended or banned. That way, the suspensions/bans are not solely based on the fact that the account that posted the spam did not satisfy the Strong Triadic Closure Property with its comment.