📚Book Review: No Filter by Sarah Frier.🤳🏻

The Inside Story of Instagram

No Filter is a well-written book about Instagram started and the subsequent saga of its purchase by, and assimilation into, Facebook’s data collection operations. It’s not an uplifting story. The Instagram founders’ ideals about protecting user privacy, rewarding artistry, encouraging creativity, and building communities, got tossed when they became part of Facebook. Instead, Mark Zuckerberg’s pursuit of likes, advertising deals, and tons of money won out (of course it would). The Instagram founders (Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger) left Facebook in the fall of 2018. And I suspect they served as sources for several of the stories in No Filter. Read this book if you are interested in the backstory, but before you do(or instead of) check out Nick Bostrom’s latest HBO documentary, Fake Famous! It documents three people who seek to become Instagram stars. (Hint you buy your followers, comments, and likes).

Amazon Link: No Filter

J. Scott Christianson is a technologist and an Associate Teaching Professor of management at the Trulaske College of Business, where his interests are focused on the impact of technology on society. You can connect with him on his website, LinkedIn, Twitter, or by following his newsletter, The Free-Range Technologist.