In June 2018, the daily active story users of Instagram had reached 400 million users, and monthly active users had reached 1 billion active users. Later in May, TechCrunch reported about tests of a Location Stories feature in Instagram Stories, where public Stories content at a certain location are compiled and displayed on a business, landmark or place’s Instagram page. This setting can be changed to allow unlimited messages from other accounts that the user does not follow.
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.
Algorithm and design changes
- The developer, Instagram, Inc., indicated that the app’s privacy practices may include handling of data as described below.
- In 2016, Olivia Solon, a reporter for The Guardian, posted a screenshot to her Instagram profile of an email she had received containing threats of rape and murder towards her.
- Furthermore, one row of pictures only has three instead of five photos to match the mobile layout.
- 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 the U.S., there is relatively little government regulation of social media content, with most content removal taking place on a voluntary basis by the companies.
- In June 2018, the daily active story users of Instagram had reached 400 million users, and monthly active users had reached 1 billion active users.
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.
About this app
Khodarahimi & Fathi 2017 found evidence users displayed higher levels of depressive and anxious symptoms compared to non-users. 13% of British and 6% of American teenager users with suicidal thoughts could trace them to Instagram use. The second recruited 10 monthly users for a 5-day diary study, where they recorded their online habits. Instagram has since been accused of extending the practice to censor posts under vague and inconsistent circumstances, particularly in regards to sexually suggestive material. In a now-deleted Facebook post, Instagram wrote that “When developing content, we recommend focusing on your business objective or goal rather than hashtags”.
Photographic filters
Users who follow each other can send private messages with photos and videos, in contrast to the public-only requirement that was previously in place. In December 2013, Instagram announced Instagram Direct, a feature that lets users interact through private messaging (colloquially called “DM” OR “DMs”; in some regions, the messages may be known simply as “direct”/”directs”). 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.
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. 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.
In October 2013, Instagram announced that video and image ads would soon appear in feeds for users in the United States, with the first image advertisements displaying on November 1, 2013. In December 2024, Instagram announced that it was trialing a feature designed to help users reconnect with content they may have missed from their mutual followers. A few days later, Instagram announced “Story Search”, in which users can search for geographic locations or hashtags and the app displays relevant public Stories content featuring the search term. In January 2017, Instagram launched skippable ads, where five-second photo and 15-second video ads appear in-between different stories.
The Wall Street Journal reported that some parents are concerned about the effects of short-form videos on their children, as there is no way to disable Instagram or set limits. Researchers from the Guizhou University of Finance and Economics and Western Michigan University found that short-form videos like YouTube Shorts, TikTok, and Instagram Reels may make it easier for young adults and children to develop addictive behavior because short-form videos provide “short bursts of thrills”. The number of monthly users also increased from 1.5 billion in 2022 to 1.8 billion as of 2024.
On August 9, 2012, English musician Ellie Goulding released a new music video for her song “Anything Could Happen”. The system is built using a Facebook-developed deep learning algorithm known as DeepText (first implemented on the social network to detect spam comments), which utilizes natural-language processing techniques, and can also filter by user-specified keywords. After the July 2016 announcement, the ability to ban specific words began rolling out early August to celebrities, followed by regular users in September. In a recent survey, half of the applicants admitted to photo editing behavior which has been linked with concerns over body image.
- Subsequent episodes in June and August 2024 featured Reneé Rapp, Rachel Sennott, Megan Thee Stallion and GloRilla.
- In May 2021, Instagram announced a new accessibility feature for videos on Instagram Reels and Stories to allow creators to place closed captions on their content.
- Instagram has been the subject of criticism due to users publishing images of drugs they are selling on the platform.
- The primary criticisms for these updates was that Instagram was more like TikTok than photo sharing.
- In April 2024, Instagram announced that they would start testing new tools “within weeks” to fight sextortion, a form of blackmail involving intimate pictures sent online.
Then Instagram started rolling out a new feature with made Reels up to 90 seconds long beginning in June 2022. They are distinguished from regular content by the “sponsored” tag under the account name. Then in August of that year, Instagram introduced a reels button on the home page.
App Functionality
The company will put suggested posts ahead of posts from people who the user is following in the Instagram feed, citing positive reception as the reason for this change. On June 23, 2021, Instagram announced a test change to the “suggested posts” feature. 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.
In May, Instagram updated its mobile website to allow users to upload photos, and to add a “lightweight” version of the Explore tab. At the time of the announcement, it was reported that 80% of Instagram’s 600 million users were located outside the U.S., and while the aforementioned functionality was live at its announcement, Instagram also announced its intention to make more features available offline, and that they were “exploring an iOS version”. Although often admired for its success and influence, Instagram has also been criticized for negatively affecting teens’ mental health, its policy and interface changes, its alleged censorship, and illegal and inappropriate content uploaded by users.
Negative comments
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 October 1, 2018, it was announced that Adam Mosseri would be the new head of Instagram. On September 24, 2018, Krieger and Systrom announced in a statement they would be stepping down from Instagram. The app remains available on Windows 10 computers and tablets, also updated to a PWA in 2020. On April 30, 2019, the Windows 10 Mobile app was discontinued, though the mobile website remains available as a progressive web application (PWA) with limited functionality.
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 0xbet 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.
Also in July 2019, Instagram announced that it would implement new features designed to reduce harassment and negative comments on the service. 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. To comply with the GDPR regulations regarding data portability, Instagram introduced the ability for users to download an archive of their user data in April 2018.
