Since its introduction in 2010, Instagram (now owned by Meta) has become an essential platform for artists to share and market their work. Functioning like a virtual gallery space, it allows both professional and amateur artists to find and grow their audiences, providing a lucrative opportunity that was previously unimaginable.

However, recently, many artists have grown frustrated with Meta’s constantly changing and elusive algorithm, which favors users who post videos (and lots of them). This change has made content production take priority over creating actual art. On top of that, Instagram has started rolling out unskippable ads for some users, which contributes to the overall frustration.

However, the final straw for many artists and users alike is that Meta is using Instagram images to train its AI image generator. And for most users, there’s no way to opt out.

Thankfully, there is an alternative: Cara, a free, anti-AI social platform that is currently attracting Instagram users to make the switch.

Image: Cara

What is Cara?

Cara is a social media and portfolio platform for artists.

It was founded by Singaporean photographer Jingna Zhang and is currently run by a small team of volunteers. Launched in January 2023, Cara is available for Android, iOS, and as a website. It’s free to use, does not tolerate AI-generated content, and protects users’ uploads from AI scraping.

Why was Cara created?

Jingna Zhang (Cara’s foudner) was recently a victim of plagiarism, and she won her appeal in court. “Using a different medium was irrelevant. My work being 'available online' was irrelevant, She wrote on X. “Consent was necessary.”

Zhang and three other artists are also suing Google for allegedly using their copyrighted work to train Imagen, an AI image generator. She’s also in a similar lawsuit against Stability AI, Midjourney, DeviantArt and Runway AI. In an Instagram post, the photographer expressed her frustration, stating, "Words can’t describe how dehumanizing it is to see my name used 20,000+ times in MidJourney." These circumstances motivated her to create a platform dedicated to protecting and supporting other artists.

“With the widespread use of generative AI, we decided to build a place that filters out generative AI images so that people who want to find authentic creatives and artwork can do so easily,” says the Cara website. “The future of creative industries requires nuanced understanding and support to help artists and companies connect and work together. We want to bridge the gap and build a platform that we would enjoy using as creatives ourselves.”

Cara’s human-centric and anti-AI stance has made the portfolio platform incredibly popular. In fact, within a single week, it’s user base skyrocketed from 40,000 to 650,000.

How does Cara protect artists’ work?

The Cara team disagree with the current unethical form of AI-generated art. The founding team not only aim to protect artists’ work from scraping, but they also use an AI detector that automatically filters and rejects AI-generated images from portfolios. They believe that AI art should be clearly labeled to avoid misleading the public, and that people should be able to search genuine, human-created art easily.

“We understand that platforms may not have the power to solve the unethical and legal issues surrounding such datasets alone, but we believe that at the very least, they should to show solidarity and respect for artists and and their communities in such times,” the Cara website says. “We felt that if no platform is interested in doing that, then we should build a platform for ourselves, one where the human factor is respected and prioritized.”

To protect users’ work from AI tools attempting to steal their data, Cara automatically applies 'NoAI' tags to images upon upload. These tags signal AI scrapers not to use content from Cara for training. However, it is important to note that this measure cannot be enforced.

We recommend using an image cloaking tool like Glaze for additional protection of your work. Learn more about AI training and how to safeguard your creations here.

Cara’s features

At first glance, Cara looks pretty similar to Instagram. Both apps feature a grid-style profile with a brief bio, profile photo, and follower/following count displayed at the top. User can post images with captions and hashtags, and there also a 'Discover' tab where you can browse other posts. You can even like and comment on posts just like in Instagram. Here are some more Cara feature’s we love:

Personalized feed

Unlike Instagram, Cara gives users complete control over their feed content. Users can set percentages for how much they want to see from people they follow, their network, and site-wide content. Additionally, Cara doesn’t hide posts from your followers, unlike Instagram's notorious algorithm.

Bookmarks

You can also save and organize your favorite posts into folders, just like on Pinterest.

Whether it's text or images, you can save any type of post into one or multiple albums and organize them by theme, topic, keyword, or however you like.

Portfolio vs “All posts”

The grid of highlighted posts on a user's profile is called a “Portfolio.” When adding a post to your portfolio, you can tag it with the field or medium, project type, category, and the software used to create the work. You can also choose to display “All posts,” allowing people to scroll through your content similar to X (formerly Twitter). You decide which version users will see, but the portfolio view is especially useful for professionals seeking commissions or job opportunities.

Animated thumbnails

Cara users can add custom thumbnails to each post using the crop tool. But one one of the coolest features, in our opinion, is its support for animated GIF covers, making it perfect for animators to showcase their work. In the future, the Cara team plan to add video embeds so people can link to videos in their portfolios.

Community discussions

The “Latest discussions” section—on the home feed sidebar for desktop, and on the home feed tab on mobile—highlights the daily engagement among your followers.

The Cara team say, “We wanted to bring back a sense of 2000s community and this is a small throwback to our CGHUB days.”

Image: Cara

Jobs board

One of the core reasons the team built Cara was to help companies find and hire human artists. The Jobs Board serves as a platform where users can post and discover job opportunities.

Image: Cara

Despite its popularity, Cara is facing some tough challenges. The platform runs entirely on volunteer support, and costs like web hosting bills mean the team might struggle to keep growing. Even so, Cara’s rise shows that people are looking for more ethical and user-friendly social platforms.

Want to share your artwork on Cara? The free platform is available for Android and iOS.