How can sites like https://www.brandwatch.com/ crawl instagram legally?
<p>sites like brandwatch.com and various other analytic sites crawl Instagram?</p>

<p>Instagram says in their terms and conditions:</p>

<p>We prohibit crawling, scraping, caching or otherwise accessing any content on the Service via automated means, including but not limited to, user profiles and photos (except as may be the result of standard search engine protocols or technologies used by a search engine with Instagram's express consent).</p>

<p>Instagram's API has a <a href="https://www.instagram.com/developer/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">developer program</a>. This program has certain policies that developers need to abide by. </p>

<blockquote>
  <p><strong>Platform Policy</strong></p>
  
  <p>Before you start using the API Platform, we have a few guidelines that
  we'd like to tell you about. Please make sure to read the full
  Platform Policy. Here's what you'll read about:</p>
  
  <ol>
  <li>Instagram users own their media. It's your responsibility to make
  sure that you respect that right.</li>
  <li>You cannot use "insta", "gram" or "Instagram" in your company or
  product name. </li>
  <li>You cannot replicate the core user experience of the Instagram apps or web site. For example, do not build a media viewer.</li>
  <li><strong>You cannot use the API Platform to crawl or store users' media
  without their express consent.</strong></li>
  <li>Do not abuse the API Platform, automate requests, or encourage
  unauthentic behavior. This will get your access turned off.</li>
  </ol>
</blockquote>

<p>Some of the metrics from user's Instagram accounts don't count against #4 of their platform policy. For example, If you goto <a href="https://www.instagram.com/developer/endpoints/users/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.instagram.com/developer/endpoints/users/</a> in the documentation. You will see certain endpoints have scopes.</p>

<p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/zHVVV.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/zHVVV.png" alt="enter image description here"></a></p>

<p>These scopes are the permissions apps would need to request from users in order to access that endpoint. Some are public, and some are not. Likely, the metrics which brandwatch gather are either outside the scope of the permissions required from other users, OR they've been grandfathered in before changes to certain policies which restrict crawling user pages freely. </p>

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