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Best way to use Instagram from a privacy perspective?
If I wanted to create an Instagram to try to build a brand but value privacy, what are some good tips and tricks for using the app and not have all your personal data harvested by Meta?
Of course they're going to collect whatever info I post but are there some mitigation strategies? Always use a VPN? Should I get a brand new phone number?
Look up the concept of airgapping. It's a networking thing but you can apply it conceptually to how you would use something like Instagram.
Basically, have a dedicated email and device for that account and only ever use and interact with the account on that device. Of course, airgapping would also mean using a different network as well so if you're going to go all the way down the route of a separate phone and phone line, you could ensure that you're also using a different wireless carrier as well so it reports from a different IP. Or only ever use it via a dedicated VPN (i.e. not the same one you also use personally) that also reports like it's coming from somewhere else entirely.
Interesting. Yeah I was imagining something similar to what you've laid out. I hadn't thought about a different carrier. I was considering just getting a different phone and only using WiFi over VPN.
Really depends on how much you care.
Are you more worried about Meta themselves, or who they might expose your data to? By brand, are we talking about an LLC under your real name, a sole proprietorship, or just a personal portfolio page of sorts? How big of a deal would it be if your account got flagged and shut down?
If you want to be totally anonymous, Michael Bazzell's OSINT Techniques book covers that whole process.
If you simply don't want to hand out your PII to Meta on a silver platter, get a dedicated phone number and email for business use, use an alias name for signup, and configure your browser to block cross-site tracking however you like. You can use an email relay service or VPN if you so desire, but all of those will increase the likelihood of getting your account flagged.
For anybody who does half an eye roll on this solid strategy there are a few things to understand about Meta as a company and why you might want to be more wary of them that you might be now.
I clipped this a while back and unfortunately I don't remember the author's name.
When Facebook's own research team discovered that posts that get the "angry face" emoji created more engagement, they made the choice to prioritize posts that get the "angry face" 5x more in other feeds than other posts. Human assholes at FB made this choice on purpose: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/10/26/facebook-angry-emoji-algorithm/
Facebook's own research showed that a test account with moderate conservative leanings took only 1 day to start getting QAnon content. They nicknamed the test "Carol's Journey to QAnon", and despite this, allowed QAnon to remain on the platform for 13 more months. More than a year after the FBI designated them as a domestic terrorist threat: https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/facebook-knew-radicalized-users-rcna3581
Their own research showed that suggesting posts to users that their friends have shared radicalized people by giving pschological permission to have extreme views. Basically "your uncle shared this racist post!" gives people the greenlight to also share the racist post. Despite this, Zuckerberg himself refused to allow it to be fixed, saying that it would negatively impact growth: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Facebook_leak#Promoting_anger-provoking_posts
Their VP of Global Policy Joel Kaplan is a former Bush advisor and conservative lobbiest. This is important to know for a few of the next points: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joel_Kaplan
Breitbart has repeatedly had enough "strikes" to be removed from FB's News tab, but had them waved away personally by Joel Kaplan. The News tab's policies were put into effect to address the concerns around misinformation, saying that FB would remove anyone from the tab that misinformed. Breitbart is still on there today. Facebook endorses the accuracy of Breitbart's reporting by excusing their strikes. https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-files-breitbart-news-tab-employee-objections-2021-10
When FB employees noticed that the Groups feature was creating new extremist and Neo Nazi groups, they made fixes to tamp down on the hate. Joel Kaplan personally ensured that the fixes were reversed, and again said that doing this would disproportionately affect conservatives: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/06/28/facebook-zuckerberg-trump-hate/
Joel Kaplan prevented Facebook from disclosing the effect that Russian disinformation agents had on the platform, again saying this would disproportionately affect conservatives: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/mark-zuckerberg-joel-kaplan-facebook-alex-jones
Research has been published showing that 13% of suicidal teen girls in the UK trace their first suicidal thought to Instagram. Since learning this, Meta has chosen to make Instagram Kids, an Instagram for children: https://gizmodo.com/lawmakers-ask-zuckerberg-to-drop-instagram-for-kids-aft-1847683217
In order to discredit the Whistleblower, Frances Haugen, Facebook intentionally deepened political divides as a strategy. They went to the GOP and warned them that she was a leftist political activist trying to take away conservative voices; and then went to Dem lawmakers and claimed she is a GOP political operative trying to punish Facebook for banning Trump. FB cynically tried to deepen the cracks in our damaged system just to stick it to the whistlerblower: https://nypost.com/2021/12/29/facebook-tried-to-divide-dems-gop-over-whistleblower-report/
Facebook sat back and watched as its platform was used to organize a genocide. All they had to do was put the brakes on FB in one small East-Asian country, which wouldn't have even affected their budget, but despite repeated pleas, they just allowed it to be used to kill people. “In the end, there was so little for Facebook to gain from its continued presence in Burma, and the consequences for the Rohingya people could not have been more dire.": https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/dec/06/rohingya-sue-facebook-myanmar-genocide-us-uk-legal-action-social-media-violence
So don't use their platform? It's weird to say "I disagree with everything that Facebook/Meta do but I would still like to use their services without incurring any of the negative effects that comes with using their platform."
That's why I find it hard to answer OP's question. If you are advertising your service on a public platform, the very nature of that requires for people to know what the company is, who the owner is, and how to reach them, etc. If you are worried about a third party like Facebook knowing that information... don't use them.
It's kinda hard to have it both ways.
I'm just worried about Meta. I wouldn't even want to use them if it weren't for the fact almost everyone is there. And yeah it'd be an LLC. I didn't know about the account flagging though, I'll have to look into that.
Before choosing Insta/Meta as your marketing platform you should really determine if a) everybody is there and b) will marketing there make a difference?
For a) there is a big portion of the world not on Insta, so evaluate that against your target demographics.
For b) you'll have to pay Meta to promote to be see and spend a good amount of time building content and publishing. You don't just get an account and then boom 1000s of followers. And the metric that matters is if they turn into dollars for you - so you'd want to measure Meta/Insta vs Print vs Email vs LinkedIn vs ...
For my own business the Meta properties have been net-negative as a customer channel.
Is this your personal brand, or for a company/product? If it's not for you, maybe you could outsource the running and management of the account.