Social Sites As Backup?
Its probably safe to say the best thing about social platforms is sharing images. Instagram is built exclusively on pictures and has become as ubiquitous as “Kodaking” was back when the Brownie was invented. Photos on social media are fun and inspiring in so many ways. Yet some of us rely on platforms like Facebook and Instagram for backup and access to our pictures; March 13th’s outage is just one more reminder that social platforms should not be used for back up. When you are choosing an online solution for backup, here are a few questions we think you should ask:
- Are my images being compressed? How much?
- Are my private images really private?
- Who can view, edit or delete them? Can I?
- Can I easily access them any time I want?
- Am I able to locate the image I need quickly?
- Who controls my copyright?
- Will my images be used for unintended purposes like training artificial intelligence facial recognition without my permission? We’re looking at you Flickr and IBM.
- Can I answer these questions, or will a deep dive in to Terms Of Service be required?
Enjoy your photo feed on social media. We love it too–especially when we’re friends with you and we follow each other. We don’t think social sites have a role in a sound backup strategy. A good backup is a 3-2-1 system: 3 copies of important files and photos on at least 2 different types of storage and 1 copy off site.
