October 6, 2020

Thanks, I Hate It: Instagram Turns 10

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Every day, I open up my phone and stare at photos from the lives of people I hardly know until I start to feel bad about myself. That’s because I use Instagram, the highly addictive photo-sharing app founded 10 years ago today.

Facebook gets a lot of flack for propagating disinformation and collecting highly personal information about its users. But Instagram, which Facebook owns, is the same beast in a different disguise. The Instagram algorithm feeds me stories and posts from the users whose accounts I interact with most often; when I hate-stalk college acquaintances who live in mansions or flout social distancing guidelines, the app remembers, and provides me with the content I loathe. It knows my location and my browser history and hits me with targeted ads that are eerily close to things I might actually want to buy. And I, along with everyone else I know, submit to all of this because otherwise I might miss out on a really good meme.

It will be interesting to see how social media winds up affecting this election. I think one of the ways Instagram manages to retain its good graces is that it seems to be less a cesspool of mis- and disinformation than a resource for socially conscious young people to engage with activism—even if only superficially. I see countless reminders to register to vote on people’s Instagram stories every day. The question is whether it’ll make a difference.

Enjoy the rest of your afternoon. And follow Mother Jones on Instagram while you’re at it.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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