The CIA is about to launch an Instagram account

Image: Igor Golovniov/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

Espionage it for the ‘gram!

During an address at Auburn University in Alabama, CIA Director Gina Haspel unveiled some de-classified information about the CIA’s next big move: it’s launching an Instagram page.

Haspel clued the audience into the agency’s decision while talking about the social media savvy of new recruits, as well as transparency and the challenges of an agency devoted to secrets communicating its work to the public.

“Just to talk a moment about transparency, of course CIA does have a Twitter account,” Haspel said. “Our office of public affairs is getting ready to launch our Instagram account.”

“It’s a brave new world,” moderator and former head of intelligence agencies Lt. Gen. Ronald L. Burgess, who earlier acknowledged he was known as the “father of Guantanamo Bay,” said with a sigh, alluding to the dystopian novel about a world of unquestioned government authority.

Haspel acknowledged that some within the CIA weren’t too thrilled about the agency having social media. Because, ya know, spy stuff.

“We try and be as open as we can, and to protect the secrets that we must protect,” Haspel said.

Of course, the CIA isn’t the only agency with social media. The NSA and FBI also have Twitter accounts. And the FBI even has its own Instagram! Where it posts photos of field work … and jokes about its interns?

The only current CIA account might be a placeholder page, currently filled with random code.

Image: screenshot: rachel kraus/mashable

It actually might be important for intelligence agencies to have a presence on Instagram, not just Twitter. For one, Russian agents reportedly made a bigger use of Instagram than Facebook in its efforts to manipulate the 2016 U.S. presidential election. But definitely more importantly, if agencies don’t claim their handles, all that represents them on a platform of over 1 billion users are parody meme accounts, like this one named “theliteralnsa.”

“One of the most unique challenges we face at this point in history is the rate of technological change,” Haspel said earlier in her remarks. “We’re endeavoring at CIA, and the other U.S. intelligence agencies, to stay abreast of those changes, and to remain on the cutting edge.”

Well guys, a ‘gram is a good start! Because — watch out, meme lords — the official CIA instagram account is clearly where the agency will be conducting all of its intelligence from now on.