However, Frison & Eggermont 2017 found that, among boys and girls, browsing could predict depressive symptoms; liking and posting seemed to have no effect. Their study showed presence of depressive symptoms in a user could positively predict they would post. The study showed viewing celebrity and peer pictures could make the moods of women negative. In a 2021 study, Mun & Kim pointed out users with a strong need for approval were more likely to falsely present themselves, which increased the likelihood of depression.
However, the following month, more details emerged, with a group of hackers selling contact information online, with the affected number of accounts in the “millions” rather than the previously assumed limitation on verified accounts. Hours after the hack, a searchable database was posted online, charging $10 per search. The Daily Beast was provided with a sample of the affected accounts and could confirm that, while many of the email addresses could be found with a Google search in public sources, some did not return relevant Google search results and thus were from private sources. The Verge wrote that cybersecurity firm RepKnight had found contact information for multiple actors, musicians, and athletes, and singer Selena Gomez’s account was used by the hackers to post naked photos of her ex-boyfriend Justin Bieber. Correlations have been made between Instagram content and dissatisfaction with one’s body, as a result of people comparing themselves to other users. In a recent survey, half of the applicants admitted to photo editing behavior which has been linked with concerns over body image.
In April 2012, Facebook acquired the service for approximately US$1 billion in cash and stock. The Android version of Instagram was released in April 2012, followed by a feature-limited desktop interface in November 2012, a Fire OS app in June 2014, an app for Windows 10 in October 2016, and an app for iPadOS in September 2025. Although often admired for its success and influence, Instagram has also been criticized for negatively affecting teens’ mental health, its policy and interface changes, its alleged censorship, and illegal and inappropriate content uploaded by users.
In April 2018, Instagram launched its version of a portrait mode called “focus mode”, which gently blurs the background of a photo or video while keeping the subject in focus when selected. In November, Instagram began to support Alt text to add descriptions of photos for the visually impaired. They are either generated automatically using object recognition (using existing Facebook technology) or manually specified by the uploader. In September 2022, Ireland’s Data Protection Commission fined the company $402 million under privacy laws recently adopted by the European Union over how it handled the privacy data of minors. This feature allows users to share updates as short text posts of up to 60 characters with certain people, who can then reply to them using messaging on Instagram.
Then, the following month, Reels officially launched in 50 countries including the United States, Canada and United Kingdom. Then in August of that year, Instagram introduced a reels button on the home page. They are distinguished from regular content by the “sponsored” tag under the account name. Despite the “TikTokification” of Reels and the parent company Meta spending millions on courting content creators, user engagement continued to lag way behind TikTok as of 2022. Then Instagram started rolling out a new feature with made Reels up to 90 seconds long beginning in June 2022.
In 2016, Affleck filmed an endorsement for Rezpect Our Water, an online petition to stop construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. Affleck appeared at a press conference with New York Senator Chuck Schumer in 2002, in support of a proposed Anti-Nuclear Terrorism Prevention Act. In 2003, he criticized the “questionable and aggressive” use of the Patriot Act and the resulting “encroachments on civil liberties”. In 2007, he filmed a public service announcement for Divided We Fail, a nonpartisan AARP campaign seeking affordable, quality healthcare for all Americans. Affleck was a longtime supporter of legalizing gay marriage, saying in 2004 that he hoped to look back on the marriage debate “with some degree of embarrassment for how antiquated it was”. Also that year, he remarked that it was “outrageous and offensive” to suggest members of the transgender community were not entitled to equal rights.
- Initially a purely photo-sharing service, Instagram incorporated 15-second video sharing in June 2013.
- Affleck had begun to worry that he would be relegated to a career of “throwing people into their lockers”, but Smith wrote him a lead role in the romantic comedy Chasing Amy (1997).
- In August 2017, reports surfaced that a bug in Instagram’s developer tools had allowed “one or more individuals” to gain access to the contact information, specifically email addresses and phone numbers, of several high-profile verified accounts, including its most followed user, Selena Gomez.
- In July 2016, it announced that users would be able to turn off comments for their posts, as well as control the language used in comments by inputting words they consider offensive, which will ban applicable comments from showing up.
- Manohla Dargis of The New York Times praised the film’s “sensitivity to real struggle”, while Stephen Farber of The Hollywood Reporter described it as “thoughtful, deeply poignant, and splendidly executed”.
Career
Meta representatives replied that they were disappointed with the chicken road lawsuit and were hoping instead to continue working with other companies from the industry to create new and better standards for applications teens use. A few days after a fire incident that happened in the Koryo Hotel in North Korea on June 11, 2015, authorities blocked Instagram to prevent photos of the incident from being spread. On January 2020, after the Assassination of Qasem Soleimani by the United States, Instagram removed posts expressing support for General Soleimani. Like many social media sites, Instagram employs a combination of automated algorithms, user reports and human review to identify and remove illegal content such as child abuse and encouragement of terrorism.
2014: Additional platforms and acquisition by Facebook
The app automatically begins playing videos as soon as it is launched, which CEO Kevin Systrom contrasted to video hosts where one must first locate a video. In April 2024, Instagram announced that they would start testing new tools “within weeks” to fight sextortion, a form of blackmail involving intimate pictures sent online. On August 2, 2024, Turkey blocked Instagram after the platform deleted posts from users offering condolences for the death of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh. In December 2024, Instagram and MTA collaborated and sold Metrocards ft. creators such as New York Nico, Overheard In New York, and SubwayTakes. In February 2023, Instagram introduced a new feature allowing users to browse and post GIFs in their comments.
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Tiggermann et al. showed facial satisfaction can decrease when one spends greater time editing selfies. Comments related to appearance on Instagram can lead to higher dissatisfaction with one’s body. Since 2017, Instagram has employed the ability to reduce the prominence of accounts (“shadowbanning”) it believes may be generating non-genuine engagement and spam (including excessive use of unneeded hashtags), preventing posts from appearing in search results and in the app’s Explore section. In a now-deleted Facebook post, Instagram wrote that “When developing content, we recommend focusing on your business objective or goal rather than hashtags”. Instagram has since been accused of extending the practice to censor posts under vague and inconsistent circumstances, particularly in regards to sexually suggestive material. Instagram introduced a verification feature, known as the blue verified badge, in December 2014.
App support
Also in February 2023, Zuckerberg announced that Meta would start selling blue “verified” badges on Instagram and Facebook. In April 2022, Instagram began testing the removal of the ability to see “recent” posts from various hashtags. This change became permanent and system wide a year later, and now hashtags can only be used to see a selection of curated content from “top” users. These changes are ostensibly an attempt to hinder the spread of misinformation, while Instagram has also repeatedly stated that hashtags do not help posts get views.
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Affleck urged voters to “help make history” in a MoveOn.org campaign, and made several appearances during the 2008 Democratic National Convention. In the week of the presidential election, he appeared on Saturday Night Live to jokingly endorse Senator John McCain. Affleck did not actively campaign for Obama’s reelection in 2012, though he still supported him. During the Democratic National Convention in Boston, he spoke to many delegations, appeared on political discussion shows, and attended fundraising events. Affleck took part in a voter registration public service announcement, and traveled with Kerry during the opening weekend of his Believe in America Tour, making speeches at rallies in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Ohio.
- In March 2021, a feature was added that prevents adults from messaging users under 18 who do not follow them as part of a series of new child safety policies.
- Shookus served as the head of Saturday Night Live’s talent department at the time, a show which Affleck has hosted five times since 2000.
- Instagram has been blocked by China following the 2014 Hong Kong protests as many confrontations with police and incidents occurring during the protests were recorded and photographed.
- In 2016, Olivia Solon, a reporter for The Guardian, posted a screenshot to her Instagram profile of an email she had received containing threats of rape and murder towards her.
The article noted that, unlike film critics and tabloid journalists, “few industry professionals seem to be gloating over Affleck’s travails”. Affleck’s first starring film role was as an aimless art student in the college drama Glory Daze (1995), with Stephen Holden of The New York Times remarking that his “affably mopey performance finds just the right balance between obnoxious and sad sack”. He then played a bully in filmmaker Kevin Smith’s comedy Mallrats (1995) and became friends with Smith during the filming. Affleck had begun to worry that he would be relegated to a career of “throwing people into their lockers”, but Smith wrote him a lead role in the romantic comedy Chasing Amy (1997). Janet Maslin of The New York Times praised Affleck’s “wonderful ease” playing the role, combining “suave good looks with cool comic timing”.
As of November 2024 Reels average collectively 150 billion views a day, Creators earn money based on the amount of views they receive, or through ad revenue. Initially a purely photo-sharing service, Instagram incorporated 15-second video sharing in June 2013. The addition was seen by some in the technology media as Facebook’s attempt at competing with the then-popular video-sharing application Vine. Albums were introduced in February 2017, which allow up to 10 minutes of video to be shared in one post. In December 2017, Instagram began to allow users to follow hashtags, which display relevant highlights of the topic in their feeds.
In 2013, Affleck and Garner hosted an event for lawmakers at their home in support of a bill that would protect celebrities’ children from harassment by photographers; their six-year-old daughter made a speech about her personal experiences. Garner also testified before the California Assembly Judiciary Committee in support of the bill, which later became law. Despite the legislation, photographers still regularly waited outside their children’s school and police assistance was sometimes required. In 2014, Affleck argued in favor of United Kingdom-style legislation that requires media outlets to blur children’s faces in published photos. He has said there are “real practical dangers” involved in paparazzi attention, citing Garner’s longtime stalker, Steven Burky, who was arrested in December 2009 while trying to blend in with paparazzi outside their daughter’s preschool. Burky was charged with two counts of stalking, to which he pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.
Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly described it as a “wholesome and quick-witted” performance. When Affleck starred as a recently returned Korean War veteran in the coming-of-age drama Going All the Way (1997), Todd McCarthy of Variety found him “excellent”, while Janet Maslin of The New York Times noted that his “flair for comic self-doubt made a strong impression.” He and his brother, Casey, were surrounded by people who worked in the arts; the boys regularly attended theater performances with their mother and were encouraged to make their own home movies.
Following behind, college graduates consist of 18% and users with a high school diploma or less make up 15%. Picardo et al. 2020 examined the relationship between self-harm posts and actual self-harm offline and found such content had negative emotional effects on some users. The study reported evidence of online posts affecting offline behavior, but stopped short of claiming causality. Users report higher body surveillance (habitual monitoring of one’s shape and size), appearance-related pressure, eating-disorder-related-pathology and lower body satisfaction than non-users. Studies have shown users who take more selfies before making a post, and those who strategically present themselves by editing selfies, report higher levels of body surveillance and body dissatisfaction, and lower esteem overall.
Their relationship was extensively publicized, with tabloids referring to the couple as Bennifer, the first celebrity portmanteau of its kind. They appeared together in the music video for her song “Jenny from the Block” and the film Jersey Girl. They became engaged in November 2002 but their planned wedding on September 14, 2003, was postponed with four days’ notice because of “excessive media attention”. Affleck became more involved with television and film production in the early 2000s.
