Time brought attention to the recent and perhaps surprising meeting between Instagram’s CEO and co-founder Kevin Systrom and Pope Francis at the Vatican on Friday, to discuss the power of images.
Scroll down to see the Instagram picture of Pope Francis and Kevin Systrom.
The meeting took place at the Apostolic Palace, and is the latest move by Facebook-owned Instagram, to assert itself as the dominant platform for visual communication.
A statement released to TIME ahead of the meeting explained the purpose, which was to show how images can “unite people across borders, cultures and generations.”
Instagram has recently focused on building up teams of curators to boost the social sharing platform’s discovery features.
The corporation wants people to see the world happening in real time through Instagram. Systrom explained:
“I think that’s true whether it’s Taylor Swift’s 1989 tour, which trends on Instagram all the time, or an important moment like a protest overseas, or a march like ‘Je suis Charlie’ in Paris. We want to make all of those, no matter how serious, no matter how playful, discoverable and accessible on Instagram.”
To further illustrate the impact of pictures, Systrom brought the Pope a curated book of 10 Instagram images. The book included images from the Nepalese earthquake and the continuing exodus of migrants and refugees from the Middle East into Europe, as well as photographs from inside North Korea and from the heart of last year’s Baltimore protests.
Pope Francis’ extraordinary popularity has helped increase church attendance around the world. As his present and potential future amount of followers on Instagram is enormous, Systrom’s courtship is understandable. Time will tell if Instagram will be the preferred social media outlet for papal pictures.
Featured image of Pope Francis by Korea.net / Korean Culture and Information Service. Permission to use under Creative Commons.
