Why a Half a Million Artists left Instagram for Cara Last Week
Why a Half a Million Artists left Instagram for Cara Last Week
Not federated, but still good to see some alternatives
No idea why people post YT videos instead of articles. Brad McChad here waffling for seven minutes to supply enough information for a 30 second paragraph -
AI summary -
Tech reviewer Brad discusses the mass migration of artists from Instagram to the new social network Cara. With over half a million new users in just a few days, Cara offers artists protection for their work from being used in AI models and community-vouched portfolio accounts that filter out AI art. Instagram, on the other hand, has been losing favor due to decreased algorithm traction, drops in followers and engagement, and a focus on viral content. The final straw came when Instagram started allowing users to opt out of their AI training models, leaving artists feeling disregarded. Cara, self-funded by its creator Jinga Zang, provides a refreshing alternative to Instagram, with potential to operate as a normal business without investor pressure. The controversy surrounding Meta (formerly Facebook) and its AI models, which led to a mass exodus of artists, was also discussed, with concerns over users' ability to opt out of having their work used in these models. Despite the challenges Cara faces as a new social network, the speaker expresses support for the platform and encourages viewers to check it out.
Thank you for this. It's astounding to me that somehow we have the attention span for a 7 minute video but not a thirty second article.
Totally agree, and still chuckle at the fact that it's an AI summary of a video about how artists are leaving a platform due to AI.
🤌
Was it a 30 second paragraph because you had AI summarize it? 🤔
If I can listen to a human-narrated, 8-minute info dump passively, I'll chose that over 30s of reading "AI-summarised" wall of text any time.
For me it's absolutely the opposite. But hey, at least now we both have options.
BTW, since you watched the video might I ask you to take the time to check the paragraph above, and see if you spot any important details missing that are in the video?
Well, the main thing from Brad is reviewing tech for artists and showing how the product is used, so video makes sense. Videos like this are not that usual.
I just post wherever I see it first. I did actually search for articles about this one cause I know people prefer it, but it saw no indication in mainstream tech sites. It seems to have flown under the radar.
I like that the owner is an artist herself, they aren't VC backed, and they don't allow AI generated art. The verification process for accounts is interesting. I'll be interested to see where it goes from here.
The "NO AI" clause is conditional, though.
As mentioned in their FAQ, they will reverse that rule when it is "viable in terms of data privacy and ethicality"
unless the rampant ethical and data privacy issues around datasets are resolved via regulation.
Whilst they aren't VC-Backed, their servers already had to do nearly 10 upgrades, their "AI Detection" is backed by another, third-party AI, and it's not transparent what said service is.
And to top it off, it's a closed ecosystem. You upload your art there, and either Cara dies one day and your following is gone, or they change their policies, leadership or anything else, at which point everyone will have to move again
it's yet another case where the Fediverse and other Federated networks address the core issue that lead to this disaster - content ownership - better than systems like these do. I'm not hopeful for Cara.
People just will not learn from the mistakes of the past.