Grisly slay delay
Instagram ‘let pics spread’
Instagram’s failure to quickly remove a photo of a teen social-media star’s dead body helped the image spread to dark, womanhating corners of the Internet — deepening her family’s heartbreak, cops and relatives said Tuesday.
The stepmother of 17-year-old Bianca Devins, who was killed allegedly by her boyfriend, Brandon Andrew Clark, blasted the creeps who shared the photo as Instagram let it to stay up for a full day.
“It is absolutely disgusting that people are sharing, screenshoting the pictures of Bianca’s (tragic) death!! Wtf is wrong with you people!!??” Kaleigh Nicole fumed on Facebook, which owns Instagram. “I have seen the pictures. I will FORVER have those images in my mind when I think of her.”
Clark allegedly killed Devins early Sunday and posted the picture of her slit throat to Instagram, which left it up for about 24 hours. He also posted photos of himself trying to commit suicide as cops confronted him, before they took him into custody and charged him with second-degree murder.
On the upstate Utica street where he was busted — and where he allegedly dumped Devins’ body — he left a message spray-painted on the ground: “May you never forget me.”
By failing to yank the photo, Instagram fueled a troll-fest that drew gawkers across the world, according to cops and social-media experts.
“Instagram should have gotten [the photo] off as quickly as possible to avoid it spreading to dark parts of the Internet,” said trends analyst Marian Salzman.
Instagram says it took “steps to prevent others from re-uploading the content posted to that account to Instagram.”
A spokeswoman said the firm used tech to find “images visually similar to the original” in order to automatically remove them.
But the chilling photos — which depict Devins with a slashed throat next to a knife — spread to multiple misogynistic Web sites before Clark’s account was finally shut down, The Daily Beast reported.
The social-media circus may have also fueled fake online fundraisers that claimed to honor the teen Tuesday, a rep for Devins’ family said.
And the images were still being shared on some sites Tuesday, according to Bryan Coromato of the Utica Police Department.
“We reached out to [Instagram] as soon as we learned they were up there — it’s obvious it took about 24 hours to take down,” Coromato said. “Those images are on platforms other than Instagram, and they’re still being circulated.”
Meanwhile, the Oneida County District Attorney said Tuesday that Clark, became upset when Devins kissed another man at a concert in Queens.