Instagram
Scraping Teardown
Find out everything you need to know to reliably scrape Instagram,
including scraping guides, Github Repos, proxy performance and more.
Instagram Web Scraping Overview
Instagram implements multiple layers of protection to prevent automated data extraction. This section provides an overview of its anti-bot systems and common challenges faced when scraping, along with insights into how these protections work and potential strategies to navigate them.
Scraping Summary
Instagram is a popular social media platform which allows users to share images and videos. It has a significant amount of data and therefore a popular target for web scraping. However, Instagram uses sophisticated anti-scraping mechanisms such as blocking suspicious IP addresses and excessive requests to protect its data. Navigating these features requires advanced web scraping techniques and tools. Web scraping Instagram involves dealing with Login, navigating through complex and dynamic JavaScript and handling AJAX calls. As a result, scraping Instagram present challenges both from an access (proxies, anti-scraping mechanisms, data behind login) and parsing (dynamic CSS, AJAX) perspective.
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RUInstagram Anti-Bots
Anti-scraping systems used by Instagram to prevent web scraping. These systems can make it harder and more expensive to scrape the website but can be bypassed with the right tools and strategies.
Instagram Data
Explore the key data types available for scraping and alternative methods such as public APIs, to streamline your web data extraction process.
Data Types
No data types found
Public APIs
API Description
Instagram's public API facilitates user profile, media, and comments access. The API is highly limited, for instance, users cannot access messages, followers, and other private data. Additionally, certain operations, such as following and unfollowing users, liking photos, and posting content, are not enabled through the API.
Access Requirements
In order to use the Instagram API, developers must register an application, adhere to Community Guidelines and follow special rules around data usage.
API Data Available
Why People Use Web Scraping?
Developers turn to web scraping for Instagram due to a lack of access to all desired data through the API. Although the API does provide access to basic profile data and media, the API does not provide access to a user's full public feed, their followers, messages, or other highly sought-after data.Furthermore, people resort to web scraping to perform actions that are disallowed via the API. Activities such as automating the process of liking photos, following users, or posting comments cannot be done through their API, hence the reason why developers resort to web scraping.
Instagram Web Scraping Legality
Understand the legal considerations before scraping Instagram. Review the website's robots.txt file, terms & conditions, and any past lawsuits to assess the risks. Ensure compliance with applicable laws and minimize the chances of legal action.
Legality Review
Scraping Amazon.com presents legal risks due to strict terms of service and anti-scraping policies. The website's terms explicitly prohibit automated data extraction, and Amazon has a history of taking legal action against scrapers under laws like the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA). Key risks include potential IP bans, cease-and-desist letters, and legal liability for breaching terms. To stay compliant, scrapers should review the robots.txt file, avoid collecting personal or copyrighted data, respect rate limits, and consider using publicly available APIs where possible.
Instagram Robots.txt
Does Instagram robot.txt permit web scraping?
Summary
Instagram's robots.txt file specifies clear directives for crawlers, creating a very restrictive environment. Most paths are protected by disallow rules, meaning that web scrapers are not granted access. For instance, URLs that include the patterns /api/v1/, /graphql/query/ and /s/ are blocked from all unknown user agents, effectively preventing web scraping activities on these pages. This approach is particularly impactful because these pages are usually the primary focus for web scraping developers. The /api/v1/ and /graphql/query/ paths, for example, are typically paths used by Instagram's internal API, which carry the website's core data. The /s/ path, on the other hand, often represents links to private posts or media, which Instagram wants to protect from being scrapped. In conclusion, Instagram’s robots.txt has been designed to deter web scrappers from collecting data from their platform.
Instagram Terms & Conditions
Does Instagram Terms & Conditions permit web scraping?
Summary
Instagram's terms of service explicitly prohibit any kind of automated data collection or data scraping without explicit permission. The terms outline that "you can't attempt to create accounts or access or collect information in unauthorized ways" and further emphasize "this includes creating accounts or collecting information in an automated way without our express permission". Direct references to bots, scraping, automated ways, or anything that infringes on other people's rights under the heading 'Respect Other Members of the Instagram Community' and 'Use the Instagram Service Properly' is forbidden, which implicitly includes web scraping, crawling, or any form of automated data collection.
Instagram's primary intention behind this restriction appears to be the protection of user privacy. The consequences of violating these terms include potential account disablement and legal actions. Violations are informed to you "including if we believe that you are under 18 or that you are violating Instagram's terms, laws or regulations." Should a user continue to breach these terms after being notified, Instagram reserves the right to "refuse to provide or stop providing all or part of the Instagram Service to you".
Instagram Lawsuits
Legal Actions Against Scrapers: A history of lawsuits filed by the website owner against scrapers and related entities, highlighting legal disputes, claims, and outcomes.
Lawsuits Summary
Instagram has not been involved in any known legal disputes related to web scraping.
Found 0 lawsuits
Instagram Github Repos
Find the best open-source scrapers for Instagram on Github. Clone them and start scraping straight away.
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Stars
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Instagram Web Scraping Articles
Find the best web scraping articles for Instagram. Learn how to get started scraping Instagram.
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Instagram Web Scraping Videos
Find the best web scraping videos for Instagram. Learn how to get started scraping Instagram.