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A review by naddie_reads
No Filter: The Inside Story of Instagram by Sarah Frier
4.0
Guess I've been on a tech industry kick when it comes to my non-fiction reads these days; between "No Filter", "Burn Book" & "The Age of Surveillance Capitalism", I've pretty much made up my mind that most founders of the social media & tech industry don't particularly care about their main users. As "No Filter" demonstrates throughout the book, founders may have started with the best of intentions, but oftentimes when growth (read: profit) comes into the picture and takes over it completely, most of those good intentions would fly out the window because the founders would rather profit than bear the consequences of their actions.
This was a revelatory read about the conception and growth of Instagram, which was acquired by $1B by Facebook soon after it became a threat to FB's growth. It shows how the founders started with a creative vision of what IG should be but ended with the two co-founders stepping down from their posts after IG's independence was threatened following FB's need to control the app more and more down the line. The IG founders weren't completely innocent either; in their quest for profit, they shortchanged their earlier employees when they decided to sell to FB, which meant they reaped what they sowed.
There's not a lot of new info for those who have followed the Silicon Valley drama over the years, but since I don't particularly pay attention to the news and opted to read about such details in books instead, "No Filter" was great in the way it presented the sequence of events and the consequences of these techies' actions. These consequences were largely borne by the users of the app: the constant comparison to others' lives produced insecurity, and the trend of influencers made others try to emulate their success by using artificial means to grow their accounts (buying followers, using apps/groups to boost their posts, etc.), the leak of private information to third parties (which is more insidious since FB owns IG & Whatsapp), the growth of the attention economy thanks to the proliferation of such apps & the way these apps' algorithms has tremendous influence in shaping how we behave...
Ever since Oct 7th, I'm sure we've all seen how such algorithms and apps can shape the narrative of how things are perceived, which should concern everyone. That said, there are times when such apps are useful to disseminate alternative information compared to what is usually paddled in the MSMs, but it is increasingly obvious that we need to sift through such info ourselves to ensure we don't fall for the same algorithm trick and confirmation bias behaviours which led to Trump being elected back in 2018. If nothing else, "No Filter" is a good reminder that we need to have constant vigilance over what we give our attention, time & money to.
This was a revelatory read about the conception and growth of Instagram, which was acquired by $1B by Facebook soon after it became a threat to FB's growth. It shows how the founders started with a creative vision of what IG should be but ended with the two co-founders stepping down from their posts after IG's independence was threatened following FB's need to control the app more and more down the line. The IG founders weren't completely innocent either; in their quest for profit, they shortchanged their earlier employees when they decided to sell to FB, which meant they reaped what they sowed.
There's not a lot of new info for those who have followed the Silicon Valley drama over the years, but since I don't particularly pay attention to the news and opted to read about such details in books instead, "No Filter" was great in the way it presented the sequence of events and the consequences of these techies' actions. These consequences were largely borne by the users of the app: the constant comparison to others' lives produced insecurity, and the trend of influencers made others try to emulate their success by using artificial means to grow their accounts (buying followers, using apps/groups to boost their posts, etc.), the leak of private information to third parties (which is more insidious since FB owns IG & Whatsapp), the growth of the attention economy thanks to the proliferation of such apps & the way these apps' algorithms has tremendous influence in shaping how we behave...
Ever since Oct 7th, I'm sure we've all seen how such algorithms and apps can shape the narrative of how things are perceived, which should concern everyone. That said, there are times when such apps are useful to disseminate alternative information compared to what is usually paddled in the MSMs, but it is increasingly obvious that we need to sift through such info ourselves to ensure we don't fall for the same algorithm trick and confirmation bias behaviours which led to Trump being elected back in 2018. If nothing else, "No Filter" is a good reminder that we need to have constant vigilance over what we give our attention, time & money to.