Digital rights groups such as 7amleh and Access Now argue that the https://www.cuscocasinoonline.nl/ 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.
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. The most-liked photo on Instagram is a carousel of photos from footballer Lionel Messi celebrating winning the 2022 FIFA World Cup, The post has over 76 million likes. The photo post had received three likes and countless comments, and in September 2017, the company’s algorithms turned the photo into an advertisement visible to Solon’s sister. The policy change and its backlash caused competing photo services to use the opportunity to “try to lure users away” by promoting their privacy-friendly services, and some services experienced substantial gains in momentum and user growth following the news.

  • Since the app’s launch it had used the Foursquare API technology to provide named location tagging.
  • Users can take photos and edit them using built-in filters and other tools, then share them on other social media platforms like Facebook.
  • Lub & Trub 2015 showed that following more strangers increases social comparisons and depressive symptoms.
  • 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.
  • It was reported that these changes were primarily intended to discourage third-party clients replicating the entire Instagram experience (due to increasing monetization of the service), and security reasons (such as preventing abuse by automated click farms, and the hijacking of accounts).
  • 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.

If a piece of content is labeled false or partly false on Facebook or Instagram then duplicates of such content will also be labeled as false. 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. On December 16, 2019, Facebook announced it would expand its fact-checking programs towards Instagram, by using third-party fact-checkers organizations false information is able to be identified, reviewed and labeled as false information. It was reported that these changes were primarily intended to discourage third-party clients replicating the entire Instagram experience (due to increasing monetization of the service), and security reasons (such as preventing abuse by automated click farms, and the hijacking of accounts). Instagram has developed and released three stand-alone apps with specialized functionality.
In September 2024, Instagram added a sticker editor which allows users to cut out elements of photos and send them privately. 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”).
Recent studies highlighted the connection between short-form videos such as Instagram Reels and the brain’s reward system, specifically dopamine release. When children watch short-form videos, they learn to expect continual stimulation and fast-paced changes, which can cause problems when engaging in activities that require greater focus, such as reading. 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”.

Internal data from Meta

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.

  • Instagram artificial intelligence describes content for visually impaired people who use screen readers.
  • Khodarahimi & Fathi 2017 found evidence users displayed higher levels of depressive and anxious symptoms compared to non-users.
  • Suggested posts received more controversy after Fast Company stated that the feature would be impossible to turn off.
  • Instagram caused the userbase to fall into outrage with the December 2018 update.
  • On September 3, 2025, Instagram launched a native iPadOS app, which before relied on the iOS app and did not utilize the larger screen size of tablets.
  • The new app added support for videos (viewing and creating posts or stories, and viewing live streams), album posts and direct messages.
  • A camera inside Direct lets users take a photo and send it to the recipient without leaving the conversation.

2017: Redesign and Windows app

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. Similarly, an app for Windows 10 personal computers and tablets was released in October 2016.
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.

About this app

However, Instagram discontinued this version of Threads in December 2021, mainly due to most of its features being rolled out on Instagram itself, as well as low usage compared to other social media applications. The change was made official in October, with head of product Vishal Shah stating that the feature was underused and that some users were “surprised” when they realized their activity was being surfaced in this manner. In August 2019, Instagram also began to pilot the removal of the “Following” tab from the app, which had allowed users to view a feed of the likes and comments made by users they follow. The application was shut down and removed from app stores in March 2022, citing low usage and a shift to short-form video content. Users can take photos and edit them using built-in filters and other tools, then share them on other social media platforms like Facebook. Instagrama is an American photo and short-form video sharing social networking service owned by Meta Platforms.

App support

Users can upload photographs and short videos, follow other users’ feeds, and geotag images with the name of a location. This feature allows users to share updates as short text posts of up to 60 characters with certain people, who can then reply to them using messaging on Instagram. During Facebook F8, it was announced that Instagram would, beginning in Canada, pilot the removal of publicly displayed “like” counts for content posted by other users. Realizing that it was too similar to Foursquare, they refocused their app on photo-sharing, which had become a popular feature among its users.
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.
Correlations have been made between Instagram content and dissatisfaction with one’s body, as a result of people comparing themselves to other users. One exception was in January 2020, when Instagram and its parent company, Facebook, Inc., removed posts “that voice support for slain Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani to comply with US sanctions”. A few days after a fire incident that happened in the Koryo Hotel in North Korea on June 11, 2015, authorities blocked Instagram to prevent photos of the incident from being spread. According to the IFJ, Instagram is popular among Iranians because it is seen as an outlet for freedom and a “window to the world”.Still, Iran has sentenced citizens to prison for posts made on their Instagram accounts. Like many social media sites, Instagram employs a combination of automated algorithms, user reports and human review to identify and remove illegal content such as child abuse and encouragement of terrorism. In contrast, the level of agreement expressed in creating Instagram posts was lower, which demonstrates that Instagram’s emphasis on visual communication is widely accepted by young people in social communication.

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).

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. Then, the following month, Reels officially launched in 50 countries including the United States, Canada and United Kingdom. Instagram Reels was officially launched in Pakistan in August 2022, two years after its global rollout in August 2020. Instagram Reels is the short-form section of the American social media platform Instagram. In May 2017, Instagram once again updated the Explore tab to promote public Stories content from nearby places.
Microsoft launched a Hyperlapse app for Android and Windows in May 2015, but there has been no official Hyperlapse app from Instagram for either of these platforms to date. In March 2015, Instagram announced it would implement “carousel ads”, allowing advertisers to display multiple images with options for linking to additional content. 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. Meta stated that the test would initially reach a limited number of users, with plans for a global rollout depending on feedback. By doing so, users can easily access curated Stories from the past week that they might not have seen previously. 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.