Instagram is a social media platform that focuses on photos and videos, and allows users to share their experiences, interests, and perspectives. It was launched in 2010 and acquired by Facebook in 2012. In January 2023, based on a report by Statista, Instagram had over two billion monthly active users worldwide, making it one of the most popular social networks in the world.

Instagram's features include filters, hashtags, stories, reels, and direct messaging, which have made it a popular platform for personal expression, creativity, and communication. Instagram's influence on culture and society has been significant, especially in the areas of fashion, art, and lifestyle.

Instagram and politics

Instagram is increasingly being used in political communication and engagement. Political parties, candidates, and governments are using the platform to share their policies, connect with voters, and mobilize supporters. Instagram's visual and interactive features, such as stories and live videos, have made it a powerful tool for political campaigning and storytelling.

According to a 2021 review of 37 studies of Instagram use in various countries, Instagram is well suited for political advertising: it offers a direct contact to followers and is popular among young voters. In general, the politicians tend to promote a positive, professional image of themselves on Instagram, rather than to reflect on policy issues, engage in direct interaction with citizens, or mobilize voters. They also post more family photos on Instagram than on Facebook. When political themes are posted in Instagram, they are often framed in private settings. According to the study, politicians of the center and right leaning parties tend to post more non-political content and those of the center-left and left post more political issues.[1]

While Instagram offers ways of interaction, the politicians in general do not engage in ample dialogues in the platform. According to another study, especially young Instagram users expect personal content and two-communication from the politicians.[2]

Instagram in Myanmar

Instagram is a popular application within Myanmar celebrities, women and young people. There are more than 1.7 million Instagram users in 2023.

After the military seized power in a coup, the junta had blocked facebook and has expanded its internet crackdown, ordering mobile networks and internet service providers in the country to block Twitter/X and Instagram. [3]

The use of Instagram and posting against the junta can be acted upon with the section 66 of the Telecommunication Law, but people in Myanmar mainly use Instagram for posting videos and photos of their happy moments.

According to a study conducted by the technology accelerator Phandeeyar[4], Instagram is more popular in other South-East Asian countries than Myanmar because of it celebrity or "cele" content. In the study, young people from Myanmar often found cele users annoying and claimed that their conspicuous displays of wealth, drinking, and western dress made them bad influences. They said that seeing these images could affect the confidence of young people. In a similar study by Save the Children, some young people said that cele users degraded the dignity of Myanmar and contributed to the harassment of women. In contrast, some young people liked the broader exposure to fashion and pop-culture that social media gave them.[5]

Some celebrities with connections to the military government have been blocked from Facebook, but they have remained active on Instagram.

Instagram activism

Instagram provides users with few features to share or repost, which limits its use in digital activism. Nevertheless, according to a recent study conducted in Hong Kong, users who are politically active offline also share their activism on Instagram. People who partake social protest are very active in posts related to the protests, and they use a lot of symbols related to protests. Instagram is in this way used to raise their network’s awareness of the protests.[6]

Another common form of Instagram activism is the use of hashtags, made popular on Twitter/X. Hashtags are being used to call attention to social topics from equality to human rights. In Indonesia, for example, hashtags were used widely in Instagram to promote awareness of the Covid-19 pandemic.[7]

Risks of using Instagram in politics

One risk of Instagram use in poltics is that politics are not that interesting to Instagram users. A study by the the University of Missouri-Columbia found that the majority of Intagram users are drawn to Instagram for social news and entertainment and are less likely to engage with political or controversial images.

"Some users said they felt badly about 'liking' a photo of a tragedy while others said they turn to other sources when they seek serious news stories. Many people view Instagram as an oasis where they can escape from the troubles and concerns of everyday life", said one of the authors, T.J. Thomson, to Science Daily.[8]

There are also growing concerns of the use of artificial intelligence to produce deep fake images and videos that can be used to spread misinformation on Instagram.[9]

But so far, Instagram is not as riddled with hate speech and misinformation as other platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter/X. According to British politicians interviewed by The Guardian, Instagram seems to be better inoculated against viral hate. It’s more rewarding for trolls to harass public figures on a viral platform like Twitter/X, where journalists are more likely to notice and reward them with attention. Extremists seem to prefer to organize inside Facebook groups, which provide them with somewhere private to exchange toxic ideas. Also, because Instagram does not have a feature to re-share someone else's posts, it is more difficult to incite followers to ridicule or attack it. Although people can share screenshots of someone else’s words, users mainly see content from people they’ve chosen to follow and probably like. That reduces potential for bullying.[10]

Instagram policies

Instagram has a set of policies in place regarding political content and privacy, which are designed to ensure transparency, accuracy, and user protection. On political content, Instagram requires all political ads to be labeled as such and provides a publicly accessible Ad Library that allows users to view information about the ads, such as who paid for them and how much was spent.

The platform says it is committed to reducing the spread of false information. Meta uses both technology and feedback from the community to identify posts and accounts that may contain false information. They also work with third-party fact-checkers across the globe who review content in over 60 languages and are certified through the non-partisan International Fact-Checking Network to help identify, review and label false information.

On privacy, the app offers tools such as privacy settings, ad preferences, and data download options to give users more control over their data.