Senator Edward Markey (D-Mass.) sent a letter to Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom on Monday calling on him to ban gun sales on the the popular photo-sharing service. Markey is the first U.S. Senator to join the campaign started by two New York State Assembly members in October. While Instagram is not a commerce website, the letter urges Systrom to prohibit sales in a manner “consistent with policies adopted by online marketplace entities such as Craigslist and eBay.”
I now need to say a word or two about the image of the Instragram gun that Al Jazeera’s post provides…
As you can see, the image was enhanced by a filter. Each filter on Instagram creates a specific mood. The owner of the gun in the image obviously went through several filters—”Amaro” (contrasty and cool), “Early Bird” (soft and 70s), “Mayfair” (makes things look darker), and “X-Pro 2” (makes things look contrasty)—and picked the one that best captured the mood of his machine gun (soft autumn memories).
