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Is The Quest For The Perfect Selfie Destroying Nature?

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There is growing evidence of the considerable damage the social media era is having on nature, from piles of trash and human waste at picturesque hotspots to selfie-taking tourists trampling wildflower blooms or walking on fragile geothermal features in search of the perfect selfie. While tourists and photographers have long sought the perfect backdrop to their vacation or naturalistic imagery, social media’s globalization and professionalization of amateur photography has led to chaotic free-for-alls of influencers and would-be influencers treating nature as merely a sacrificial backdrop to be exploited in the pursuit of fame and fortune, rather than an escape from the digital world to be enjoyed. Is there any hope for reversing this trend?

Once upon a time, tourists on vacation searched for the perfect photo to capture, print a few copies to send to family and stuff the rest into a shoe box shoved under the bed. A good photograph was a nice “extra” from a trip but was merely a byproduct of an outdoor excursion rather than an all-encompassing pursuit.

In fact, it was only in the latter half of the past century that personal photography really took off, with the widespread availability of reasonably priced cameras and quick-turnaround photo development storefronts turning a roll of film into photographs in as little as a day. The lack of image preview and high cost per photograph of the film era meant images were taken sparingly.

Most importantly, the lack of a global audience or ready monetization meant there was little incentive for the average person to venture out into nature exclusively to capture the perfect photograph.

At the same time, professional nature photographers typically had sufficient experience to understand what kinds of behaviors would be harmful to the landscape and largely adhered to professional ethical standards regarding the capture of their imagery. While there were always exceptions, the typical nature photographer was reluctant to permanently destroy a natural wonder simply to get a great photo since they knew the outlets they wished to sell it to would likely reject it on ethical grounds.

The digital era’s globalization means that anyone anywhere can achieve instant fame with the right photograph, earning advertising revenue and influencer sponsorships. Every photo op means the possibility of leaping from obscurity to internet fame, while for influencers it means maintaining their fanbase and influencer status.

Nature quickly becomes a consumable and disposal backdrop.

Worse, the saturation of other would-be influencers similarly trying to take the same perfect selfie means the standard picturesque tourist hotspots quickly become passé. This pushes influencers to search for the unique shot that will set them apart, taking them off the beaten path and further into more vulnerable areas of nature. Selfie-seekers today are willing even to damage irreplaceable natural features simply to get the perfect photo that no-one else has taken.

Is there any hope for reversing this trend?

One possibility might be to create virtual geofences around sensitive areas of natural spaces that are enforced by the major social media platforms. Any image with GPS coordinates suggesting it was taken within a restricted area would be blocked from upload.

Unfortunately, such a block would be quickly overcome by users who would simply strip the GPS coordinates from their imagery.

A more potent solution might be to utilize visual geocoding, which uses deep learning algorithms to pinpoint the geographic location a photo was taken. Much as social media platforms are increasingly relying on AI algorithms to enforce their content moderation rules, they could create new rules that banned imagery taken in restricted areas of parks and utilized visual geocoding to flag imagery taken in those areas and blocked them.

If that perfect Instagram image was banned from all of the major social media platforms, it would no longer be a ticket to viral fame. Users would likely stop taking images they could not share with the world.

In fact, what if the major platforms added acceptable content rules that banned nature photos that were taken in ways that harmed natural spaces, from venturing into a restricted area to spreading a blanket in a field of wildflowers that tramples them down? With such rules in effect, any social user could flag images harmful to the environment and get them deleted.

If social influencers could no longer share such images, they would likely simply stop taking them.

Putting this all together, the social revolution has turned a generation of would-be social influencers into highly destructive commercial exploiters of nature. What if social platforms stepped forward to ban environmentally harmful imagery and enforced their rules through deep learning visual geocoding algorithms?

In the end, in our share-first world, if influencers could no longer share images that were created in a way that harmed nature, they would likely simply stop and focus their efforts on more environmentally sound photo ops they can still monetize.