A hoax instagram post has been circulating this week, raising false alarm for the social media platform's users. It's claim? That Instagram has a new policy that allows the company to own all users' public, private and deleted posts. Everyone from U.S. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry to Julia Roberts fell for it.
"Even Wonder Woman fell for it, Gal Gadot," tech writer Andy Ihnatko told Boston Public Radio on Friday. "We don't know where it started, but it's one of those things that gets so into people's heads that now everybody's worried about this thing that doesn't really exist."
So does Instagram actually own all the material that we upload?
"Not really," Ihnatko said. "What they're really saying is that they don't want to have to get every user to sign a document if Instagram moves their photos from one of their servers to another one of their servers, which technically copyright law would say you can't duplicate."
Ihnatko gave some tips about how to verify viral claims like this.
"It's a good example to remind people that there's a wonderful website called Snopes.com for every time you see something that scares you," he said.
