On July 5th, 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).
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. In May 2017, a survey conducted by the United Kingdom’s Royal Society for Public Health, featuring 1,479 people aged 14–24 and asking them to rate social media platforms depending on anxiety, depression, loneliness, bullying and body image, concluded that Instagram was the “worst for young mental health”. On March 11, 2022, Russia announced it would ban Instagram due to alleged “calls for violence against Russian troops” on the platform during the ongoing 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Users will only be able to view these Highlights after they have gone through all current Stories in their tray, meaning that those who follow many accounts may find it challenging to see these updates. They appear as circles below the profile picture and biography and are accessible from the desktop website as well. In August 2023, Instagram introduced new adjustments to protect user privacy and prevent harassment and spam. 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 public apology, stating that a technical error led to the unintended recommendation of such content.
In July 2022, Instagram announced a set of updates which immediately received widespread backlash from its userbase. The policy update also introduced an arbitration clause, which remained even after the language pertaining to advertising and user content had been modified. In September 2024, Meta paid out a $101 million fine for storing up to 600 million passwords of Instagram and Facebook users in plain text. In August 2017, reports surfaced that a bug in Instagram’s developer tools had allowed “one or more individuals” to gain access to the contact information, specifically email addresses and phone numbers, of several high-profile verified accounts, including its most followed user, Selena Gomez. The video only contained fan-submitted Instagram photographs that used various filters to represent words or lyrics from the song, and over 1,200 different photographs were submitted. On August 9, 2012, English musician Ellie Goulding released a new music video for her song “Anything Could Happen”.
Since 2017, Instagram has employed the ability to reduce the prominence of accounts (“shadowbanning”) it believes may be generating non-genuine engagement and spam (including excessive use of unneeded hashtags), preventing posts from appearing in search results and in the app’s Explore section. However, in December 2021, Adam Mosseri, in a Senate hearing on child safety issues, stated that the company is developing a version of the feed that would show user posts in chronological order. In May 2016, Instagram launched new tools for business accounts, including business profiles, analytics and the ability to promote posts as ads. 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.
On February 26, 2025, Instagram Reels came under fire after numerous users reported a sudden surge in violent and graphic content appearing in their feeds. It functions similarly to the Chinese video service TikTok, focusing on allowing users to create short videos already set to existing sounds from other clips. Reels focuses on vertical videos that are less than 90 seconds of duration and various features for user interaction. The app automatically begins playing videos as soon as it is launched, which CEO Kevin Systrom contrasted to video hosts where one must first locate a video. 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.
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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.
It was integrated with Instagram’s “Close friends” feature, so that users could send images, photos, and texts privately to others, and also had Instagram’s photo editing system embedded into the app. The new app added support for videos (viewing and creating posts or stories, and viewing live streams), album posts and direct messages. 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. In 2019, Instagram began to test the hiding of like counts for posts made by its users, with the feature later made available to everyone. Picardo et al. 2020 examined the relationship between self-harm posts and actual self-harm offline and found such content had negative emotional effects on some users. Also in 2020, Instagram rolled out a feature titled “suggested posts”, which adds posts from accounts Instagram thinks a user would like to such user’s feed.
- 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.”.
- A Meta spokesperson explained, “We have fixed an error that caused some users to see content in their Instagram Reels feed that should not have been recommended. We apologize for the mistake.”
- It was integrated with Instagram’s “Close friends” feature, so that users could send images, photos, and texts privately to others, and also had Instagram’s photo editing system embedded into the app.
- In June 2014, Instagram announced the rollout of ads in the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia, with ads starting to roll out that autumn.
- In June 2020, because of the Black Lives Matter movement, Instagram became more widely used as a social justice platform.
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In April 2012, Facebook acquired the service for approximately US$1 billion in cash and stock. The app received around 25,000 registrations that day, though it remained a public beta. The Burbn Beta app was made available for iOS on October 6, 2010, by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger — still as a prototype, but for the first time available as a real app on the App Store rather than a web-based prototype.
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.
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Digital rights groups such as 7amleh and Access Now argue that the removal of Palestinian content reflects broader issues of digital discrimination and have called for greater transparency from social media platforms. Instagram denied intentional censorship and attributed the deletion of Palestinian posts to glitches. On January 2020, after the Assassination of Qasem Soleimani by the United States, Instagram removed posts expressing support for General Soleimani.
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- Mosseri stated that this was intended to have users “worry a little bit less about how many likes they’re getting on Instagram and spend a bit more time connecting with the people that they care about.” It has been argued that low numbers of likes in relativity to others could contribute to a lower self-esteem in users.
- In June 2012, Instagram introduced “Explore”, a tab inside the app that displays popular photos, photos taken at nearby locations, and search.
- 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.
- 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.
- However, Frison & Eggermont 2017 found that, among boys and girls, browsing could predict depressive symptoms; liking and posting seemed to have no effect.
- On March 14, the ban took effect, with almost 80 million users losing access to Instagram.
In June 2017, Instagram announced that it would automatically attempt to filter offensive, harassing, and “spammy” comments by default. 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 https://www.cuscocasinoonline.nl/ Instagram and parent company Meta, accusing them of contributing to a youth mental health crisis due to the addictive nature of the platforms.
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Internet users who make less than $30,000 per year use Instagram, while 14% of those making $30,000 to $50,000 and 12% of users who make more than $50,000 per year do so. 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.
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Users are more likely to engage with images that depict fewer individuals compared to groups and they are also more likely to engage with content that has not been watermarked, as they view this content as less original and reliable compared to user-generated content. Ongoing research continues to explore how media content on the platform affects user engagement. Following behind, college graduates consist of 18% and users with a high school diploma or less make up 15%.