On July 5, 2023, Meta launched Threads, a social network platform connected to Instagram that allows users to make public shortform blog posts comprising text, photos, and videos, as well as to converse with other users and reblog other users’ posts. In response to abusive and negative comments on users’ photos, Instagram has made efforts to give users more control over their posts and accompanying comments field. Stories are more authentic than typical photos posted as posts because users know that in 24 hours their Stories will disappear if they don’t add them as highlighted (however users can check who saw their Story for 48 hours after it was published).
- According to Instagram, they pushed forward the launch of Co-Watching in order to meet the demand for virtually connecting with friends and family due to social distancing as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
- On August 2, 2024, Turkey blocked Instagram after the platform deleted posts from users offering condolences for the death of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.
- The number of monthly users also increased from 1.5 billion in 2022 to 1.8 billion as of 2024.
- These changes are ostensibly an attempt to hinder the spread of misinformation, while Instagram has also repeatedly stated that hashtags do not help posts get views.
- The same month, they also began testing the removal of ability to share feed posts to stories.
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It helps users easily identify legitimate accounts amidst the vast number of profiles on the platform. In June 2017, Instagram revised its live-video functionality to allow users to add their live broadcast to their story for availability in the next 24 hours, or discard the broadcast immediately. In May 2017, Instagram expanded the augmented reality sticker feature to support face filters, letting users add specific visual features onto their faces. In March 2021, a feature was added that prevents adults from messaging users under 18 who do not follow them as part of a series of new child safety policies. A new update in November 2016 let users make their private messages “disappear” after being viewed by the recipient, with the sender receiving a notification if the recipient takes a screenshot.
Instagram encourages users to make tags both specific and relevant, rather than tagging generic words like “photo”, to make photographs stand out and to attract like-minded Instagram users. In April 2018, Instagram launched its version of a portrait mode called “focus mode”, which gently blurs the background of a photo or video while keeping the subject in focus when selected. The feature originally limited photos to the square format, but received an update in August to enable portrait and landscape photos instead. In August, Instagram announced that it would start organizing comments into threads, letting users more easily interact with replies.
IGTV allows uploads of up to 10 minutes in length with a file size of up to 650 MB, with verified and popular users allowed to upload videos of up to one hour in length with a file size of up to 5.4 GB. Instagram offers a number of photographic filters that users can apply to their images. Now, users are only able to see a curated selection of “popular” posts using a given hashtag.
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However, unlike post likes, the user who posted a comment does not receive notifications about comment likes in their notification inbox. On May 11, 2016, Instagram revamped its design, adding a black-and-white flat design theme for the app’s user interface, and a less skeuomorphistic, more abstract, “modern” and colorful icon. The slideshow banner on the top of profile pages, which simultaneously slide-showed seven picture tiles of pictures posted by the user, alternating at different times in a random order, has been removed. Furthermore, one row of pictures only has three instead of five photos to match the mobile layout. In June 2015, the desktop website user interface was redesigned to become more flat and minimalistic, but with more screen space for each photo and to resemble the layout of Instagram’s mobile website. In November 2012, Instagram launched website profiles, allowing anyone to see user feeds from a web browser with limited functionality, as well as a selection of badges, and web widget buttons to link to profiles.
In November 2018, Instagram added the ability for business accounts to add product links directing users to a purchase page or to save them to a “shopping list”. The new analytics page, known as Instagram Insights, allowed business accounts to view top posts, reach, impressions, engagement and demographic data. The company launched carousel image ads in October 2015, and video carousel ads in March 2016. Paid verification allowed eligible Instagram users to request verification for their accounts via paying a fee, rather than relying solely on meeting the platform’s traditional criteria for verification.
- However, this statement has also been called into question due to other apps with more explicit content allowed on the store, the lack of consequences for men exposing their bodies on Instagram, and for inconsistent treatment of what constitutes inappropriate exposure of the female body.
- In September 2017, the company announced that public users would be able to limit who can comment on their content, such as only their followers or people they follow.
- Content when rated as false or partly false is removed from the explore page and hashtag pages, additionally content rated as false or partly false are labeled as such.
- Lub & Trub 2015 showed that following more strangers increases social comparisons and depressive symptoms.
- Users can apply for verification through Instagram’s settings, but the decision to grant verification ultimately rests with Instagram’s team.Meta (formerly Facebook) launched paid verification on Instagram in 2021.
- Instagram has been proven to attract the younger generation, with 90% of its 150 million users under the age of 35.
In January 2011, Instagram introduced hashtags to help users discover both photos and each other. Users can also “archive” their posts in a private storage area, out of visibility for the public and other users. On August 2, 2024, Turkey blocked Instagram after the platform deleted posts from users offering condolences for the death of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.
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Instagram has been proven to attract the younger generation, with 90% of its 150 million users under the age of 35. While Instagram may appear to be one of the most widely used sites for photo sharing, only 7% of daily photo uploads, among the top four photo-sharing platforms, come from Instagram. While Instagram has a neutral gender-bias format, 68% of Instagram users are female and 32% are male. As of 2014update, Instagram’s users are divided equally, with 50% iPhone owners and 50% Android owners. This increased to 150 million in January 2017, 200 million in April, surpassing Snapchat’s user growth, and 250 million active users in June 2017. In October 2016, Instagram Stories reached 100 million active users, two months after launch.
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Meta representatives replied that they were disappointed with the lawsuit and were hoping instead to continue working with other companies from the industry to create new and better standards for applications teens use. The lawsuit claimed that Meta and its Instagram unit repeatedly misled the public about the dangers of its platforms and knowingly induced young children and teenagers into addictive and compulsive social media use. In October, 2023, 42 U.S. states filed a lawsuit against Instagram and parent company Meta, accusing them of contributing to a youth mental health crisis due to the addictive nature of the platforms. In 2021, Instagram announced that like counts would return to be publicly viewable by default. If some of the accounts violate Instagram’s community guidelines, it will take action, which could include banning them.
The feature allows users to verify their accounts to confirm their authenticity.Instagram began allowing users to request verification for their accounts in August 2018. Importantly, this feature will only display Story Highlights—curated collections of Stories saved by users—rather than standard Stories that disappear after 24 hours. In November, Instagram added live video functionality to Instagram Stories, allowing users to broadcast themselves live, with the video disappearing immediately after ending. In September 2024, Instagram added a sticker editor which allows users to cut out elements of photos and send them privately.
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The first interviewed 15 monthly Californian instagram users with low body image and self esteem, aged 13-21. Suggested posts received more controversy after Fast Company stated that the feature would be impossible to turn off. The company wrote a tweet to users upset at the prospect of the change, but did not back down, nor provide a way to change it back, which they reaffirmed in 2020. In April 2016, Instagram began rolling out a change to the order of photos visible in a user’s timeline, shifting from a strictly chronological order to one determined by an algorithm. It was followed by the release of Hyperlapse in August, an iOS-exclusive app that uses “clever algorithm processing” to create tracking shots and fast time-lapse videos. Commission-enabled posts are labeled “Eligible for Commission” on the user side to identify them as affiliate posts.
After the update (which is rolled out to a segment of the user base) the Instagram Direct icon transforms into Facebook Messenger icon. Meta issued a 0xbet public apology, stating that a technical error led to the unintended recommendation of such content. Confirming ‘lurking’, this study found that those who use Reels for peeking neither created any content nor participated, instead they were only keen on watching others content. The research findings suggested that user motivations and socio-psychological predictors influence people’s usage behaviours with Instagram Reels. This study identified seven motivations behind Reels usage; socially rewarding self-promotion, entertainment, escape, surveillance, novelty, documentation, and trendiness. After a period of testing, a duration of up to three minutes was announced in January 2025.
Users can browse other users’ content by tags and locations, view trending content, like photos, and follow other users to add their content to a personal feed. The backlash originated from an Instagram post and Change.org petition created by photographer Tati Bruening (under the username @illumitati) on July 23, 2022, featuring the statement “Make Instagram Instagram again. (stop trying to be TikTok; i just want to see cute photos of my friends.) Sincerely, everyone.”. In 2019, Apple pulled an app which let users stalk people on Instagram by scraping accounts and collecting data. In December, the company began rolling out the abilities for users to turn off the comments and, for private accounts, remove followers.
Initially a purely photo-sharing service, Instagram incorporated 15-second video sharing in June 2013. In April 2016, Instagram added a “Videos You Might Like” channel to the tab, followed by an “Events” channel in August, featuring videos from concerts, sports games, and other live events, followed by the addition of Instagram Stories in October. The tab was updated in June 2015 to feature trending tags and places, curated content, and the ability to search for locations. Instagram said that this is to prevent abuse and so that hashtags do not help users gain views, but it has been noted that using hashtags is the only free method for a user to reach past their existing followers. In 2022 this was again tested on some users, and in April 2023 the ability to search recent hashtags was removed entirely. In December 2017, Instagram began to allow users to follow hashtags, which display relevant highlights of the topic in their feeds.