Private social media accounts - to link or not to link

MusicBrainz
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In edit #39502723, I added a link to an artist’s Instagram account. Ordinarily this wouldn’t be a big deal, but in this case the account is private. I was unsure whether or not this was appropriate, since linking to private accounts may potentially be problematic for a number of reasons. What do you all think? Is there any potential serious harm we could cause from having these links up? Are they just dead weight? I created a discussion here because it may have serious implications for how we handle certain online resources.

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IMHO a social media account can never be private. Everyone can control his own social media account by uploading only public stuff or restrict the access for “private” informations.

On the other side: If artists like Madonna has numerous social media accounts, why should we add her private “Ciccone” account (if such an account exist).

For your specific case:
If Chris Laney publish information about his alter ego “Ulf Lennart Larsson” on his chrislaney72 Instagram account, I would add this account. If he publish only private informations about his private life as Chris Laney, I would not add this private account. IMHO his private life should not be part of MusicBrainz (“music encyclopedia that collects music metadata”).

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Not being an Instagram user, I’m unclear what „private“ means in this context. Somehow protected? Only intended for his family and friends?

What are your doubts? That you are intruding on an artists private space – or that it’s no use to link the account, because nobody can see anything there?

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I would only add a “social media” account of an artist, if it had relevant information to the “artistry” eg, a musician advertising about gigs, a photographer showing of their pictures and saying "I show of pictures I took of such and such band, and so on.

For “private” ie “only of interest to the person or friends and stuff like my cat got sick” and NO information about their relevant artistry, I’d not add it, even if they didn’t have any other.

However, if there was information relevant to why they are in MusicBrainz (or BookBrainz, etc) I’d add it even if it was designed as “private” (if no other account existed)

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But but but, when you’re a hardcore fan, you want it all, even to know the cat got sick, will explain later song lyrics. :wink:

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[quote=“docdem, post:3, topic:84343, full:false”]
Not being an Instagram user, I’m unclear what „private“ means in this context. Somehow protected? Only intended for his family and friends?[/quote]

That’s one of several possible meanings. In the purest technical sense, it means he’s restricted its contents to his followers (or possibly no one at all). I don’t have an Instagram myself, but I know roughly how it works based on descriptions certain people have given (and inferred some stuff from how Steam’s profile settings work).

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I want to make sure I got this right.
So when it’s private we don’t link?
If you cannot see the page wihtout logging in, it means it’s private, right?

I more and more often come across Facebook, Twitter or Instagram pages that I cannot see.
And today I also had Qobuz pages that I could not see.

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My understanding is, if you just need an account it’s fine to link.

However if the account is “private”, for example you need to be accepted by that person as friend, follower, whatever; then maybe not link it? (Although as said before it can be conditional or change with time, public pages becoming private and vice versa)

You need an account to see play.qobuz.com pages.

Protip: Check BugMeNot when you come across a so-called login wall.

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BTW, look at this IMO hilarious discussion at Discogs:
https://www.discogs.com/forum/thread/830974

small follow-up:
https://www.discogs.com/forum/thread/990832

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I used to use BugMeNot very long time ago for many sites* until my office network blocked it.
As I have no accounts in these “social” networks, so I cannot really check.
All I know is that I get locked out after a few seconds of browsing, at best, or immediately.

I had an anti-nag userstyle but I abandoned it, no time to maintain, compared to the weak need I had of these.
But sometimes you can find release dates or packaging photos in those, that’s a pity.

* But BugMeNot does not work with these sites:

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Basically, I’d say if you don’t have an account on the big social media sites, assume the user is not making a mistake and don’t delete :slight_smile: (that’s what I do with LinkedIn, at least :sweat_smile:).

If you have an account, and can see the page is the sort where you need to become friends with the person to see the content, probably delete.

If you can see the page is a personal one (like a Facebook user profile) but their posts are open, I guess that’s fine? Although I’d still prioritize a dedicated artist page if one exists.

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