I complained about VERO on Twitter, so the billionaire founder asked me to ask what they could do better.
The other morning, I posted an unnecessarily nasty tweet about VERO and violating my copyright. That afternoon, I found myself on an hour-long Zoom call with CEO founder Ayman Hariri after he got in touch to discuss what VERO could do to improve.
I have written extensively about freelancing on social media in the past (first, 2). So-called feature accounts sprung up, spreading community sentiment, attracting dozens, if not hundreds of thousands, just to revolve around selling dropship t-shirts and novelty mugs. Others build followers and then start charging for featured posts while touting sponsored posts. The majority of these feature accounts post people’s artwork without permission, although this is against the terms and conditions of any platform – and let’s not forget it’s illegal. It’s a quick way to make easy money from other people’s creativity.
At the same time, Instagram and other platforms massively benefited, actively encouraging this large-scale piracy by featuring these accounts on the Explore page and including them in the feed. whether “you might like this too”. Instagram has to know that these practices are wrong, but since posts with this feature take in hundreds of millions of post views per day – and thus generate massive ad revenue – it seems to be a policy decision. , supported by their legal immunity under the DMCA regulations.
Possession shouldn’t be normal
For me, Instagram has normalized the culture of appropriation, both normal and blatant, to the point where artists blindly accept these piracy as they expand their reach, attract more more followers in the ongoing social media popularity contest. I’m one of the few photographers who doesn’t appreciate this new normal, as I feel let down when I see my work enriching others while leaving nothing for me.
On a personal level, it’s a small fish – a small portion of the ad revenue will go to me, not Instagram. On a global level, however, it hurts artists as the value inherent in our art is extracted and diverted to Mark Zuckerberg’s colossal coffers. We accept this because we are conditioned to compete for attention rather than working as a team.
VERO: A different approach
VERO has been a breath of fresh air, providing a platform to fix many of the problems Instagram users have been complaining about for nearly a decade. High resolution images, chronological feed, more control over sharing, ability to share different types of content, no ads, only content from the people you want view and a desktop app. VERO has seen a spike in interest in recent months when Instagram continues to boycott photographers and influencers talked about the superiority of VERO.
Like many photographers, I opened an account over five years ago and lost interest before rediscovering it in recent months. I don’t put much effort into social sharing, but I love the VERO experience and it’s like a real competitor to Instagram. Unlike many other Instagram alternatives that have come and gone, it’s not just for photographers, though photography comes first.
A few days ago, I logged in and discovered an unexpected number of notifications: a “hub” account (as VERO refers to them) retweeted one of my photos, giving credit and congratulating me on my success. work. The incessant skepticism inside me sighed and assumed that the free kick was running out of time to get to VERO, annoyed me. Like every other good century, I immediately turned to Twitter to voice my disgust and tagged VERO’s account. In my defense, countless people groan at social media companies every day and are met by resounding silence. I don’t stand out, so I think I’m just venting my frustrations into the void, maybe prompting for a few sympathetic replies to ease my bad mood.
My needlessly offensive tweet sparked a back-and-forth with a few photographers with a few trolls jumping on the board to inform me I was wrong before being picked up by a law student and photographer. clearly understood by the photographer. Martin McNeil. What I didn’t expect was a response from Ayman Hariri, co-founder and CEO of VERO, offered to contact the hub account on my behalf and request that the post be removed. A constructive discussion followed and to my surprise, Hariri then asked if we could continue using Zoom.
A zoom call with the boss
The four of us – me, Ayman Hariri, Martin McNeil and VERO . Community Leader Tom Hodgson – talk for an hour, and it will continue if I don’t cut it short due to other commits. I know that I am in the minority when it comes to posting my work without my permission and, from what we have discussed, it is clear that VERO wants to find a way to allow advertisers to control control their content without compromising people’s desire to share their work and share their work. Feature accounts are popular for some reason, providing a platform-driven, community-driven rather than top-down discovery feed, a platform-controlled, algorithm-driven discovery feed control. As Hariri pointed out, VERO is ad-free – and has stated its commitment to being ad-free – so these feature accounts generate no ad revenue for the platform, as is the case with Instagram.
I offer my own thoughts on how artists can feel that they have more control, such as the option to mark an image as available for repost or a built-in repost system within the app, effectively co-publishing posts, not too different from Tumblr. Without a doubt, VERO has considered these options, and Hariri made it clear that he was wary of adding complexity to a social app that relies on simplicity. We seem to have different opinions here, but I’m not just making literally tens of millions of dollars on my own Instagram alternative and, without the same in-depth knowledge, can have a bunch of implications that I haven’t thought of. Maybe my ideas are trash. We shall see.
Part of the discussion focused on technology solutions that give artists more control, with McNeil citing the success of YouTube’s ContentID system – notably something it was forced to implement to avoid chaos, not a feature it established out of a noble desire to protect creators (in 2007 Google was faced with a Federal court order issued by Viacom who claimed $1 billion for a secondary violation, a case that lasted seven years and resulted in a settlement out of court. The lawsuit prompted Google started work that same year on what would become the ContentID system).
Solutions are already available – Google’s reverse image search is proof enough – and McNeil is part of a collective of musicians, authors, illustrators, and photographers that have been endorsed by Meta and others. other advises on the subject during ongoing negotiations. I have previously discussed the potential of technology such as that provided by the French company PICTURE. None of this is going to radically address freelancing or intellectual property theft, but that’s no reason to ignore it.
There’s no quick fix and our conversation will never find anything, but the discussion feels productive and it’s refreshing to be able to engage, not just with the top people. of a social media company whose people seem genuinely interested in getting our point across and working to create a platform that is the best possible version of what it has may have. Hariri is proven to be authentic and deeply invested, not only financially, but also in establishing VERO as a social media app that respects its users and their content.
In Zuckerberg, we have a billionaire busily destroying his stock price thanks to his obsession with technology that even his employees believe is pointless, while his chief subordinates tell the photographer: “Thanks for your help now.” At Hariri, we have a billionaire who loves photography and has invested huge amounts of gambling money on an idea – an alternative to Instagram – that, by precedent, will fail. I hope that doesn’t happen.
I don’t know if VERO was able to find a solution to freelancing, but in our conversation its intentions seemed clear. We need a new normal when it comes to social media and VERO seems determined to deliver it.
