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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.

YouTube Music

Following the change, after viewing a number of posts a pop-up requires the user to log in to continue viewing content. Instagram later restricted the ability to view public profiles without logging in, prompting users to sign in after viewing a limited number of posts. 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".

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.
In April 2022, Instagram began testing the removal of the ability to see "recent" posts from various hashtags.
Their study showed presence of depressive symptoms in a user could positively predict they would post.
The app remains available on Windows 10 computers and tablets, also updated to a PWA in 2020.
In February 2021, Instagram began testing a new feature called Vertical Stories, said by some sources to be inspired by TikTok.
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.

Version History

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. Subsequent episodes in June and August 2024 featured Reneé Rapp, Rachel Sennott, Megan Thee Stallion and GloRilla. 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. In April 2022, Instagram began testing the removal of the ability to see "recent" posts from various hashtags. 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. In August, Instagram announced that it would start organizing comments into threads, letting users more easily interact with replies. Users can connect their Instagram account to other social networking sites, enabling them to share uploaded photos to those sites. This change became permanent and system wide a year later, and now hashtags can only be used to see a selection of curated content from "top" users.

Videos, Music and Live Streams

The trends deemed the most popular on the platform often highlight a specific day of the week to post the material on. Users can set their account as "private", thereby requiring that they approve any new follower requests. 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. In December 2023, Instagram launched a podcast titled "Close Friends Only" featuring conversations among celebrities. Also in February 2023, Zuckerberg announced that Meta would start selling blue "verified" badges on Instagram and Facebook. In September 2022, Ireland's Data Protection Commission fined the company $402 million under privacy laws recently adopted by the European Union over how it handled the privacy data of minors. On March 14, the ban took effect, with almost 80 million users losing access to Instagram. In July 2021, Instagram temporarily censored videos with the phrase "death to Khamenei". Sometimes the phrase "Chinese Instagram" is used to refer to Xiaohongshu, a competitor social media app which is not to be confused with Instagram. Instagram also announced that adults would not be allowed to message teens who don't follow them as part of a series of new child safety policies. In February 2021, Instagram began testing a new feature called Vertical Stories, said by some sources to be inspired by TikTok. 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. However, new incidents of illegal drug trade have occurred in the aftermath of the 2013 revelation, with Facebook, Inc., Instagram's parent company, asking users who come across such content to report the material, at which time a "dedicated team" reviews the information. People can't buy things on Instagram, we are simply a place where people share photos and videos. We encourage people who come across illegal or inappropriate content to report it to us using the built-in reporting tools next to every photo, video or comment, so we can take action. In 2013, the BBC discovered that users, mostly located in the United States, were posting images of drugs they were selling, attaching specific hashtags, and then completing transactions via instant messaging applications such as WhatsApp. 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.

On October 1, 2018, it was announced that Adam Mosseri would be the new head of Instagram.
The changes included a feed more focused on Instagram's content algorithms, full-screen photo and video posts, and changing the format of all of its videos to Reels.
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 January 2011, Instagram introduced hashtags to help users discover both photos and each other.
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.
A Meta-operated image-centric social media platform, it is available on iOS, Android, Windows 10, and the web.

Product features

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". A camera inside Direct lets users take a photo and send it to the recipient without leaving the conversation. The feature received a major update in September 2015, adding conversation threading and making it possible for users to share locations, hashtag pages, and profiles through private messages directly from the news feed. These researchers found that college students in the U.S. and China watch short-form videos for entertainment, knowledge, and to build social identities. 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." Despite the "TikTokification" of Reels and the parent company Meta spending millions on courting content creators, user engagement continued to lag way behind TikTok as of 2022. Users can also view statistics on their videos and see other user's videos that are trending in the Inspiration tab. 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 https://www.cuscocasinoonline.nl/ 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. 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. In April 2020, Direct became accessible from the Instagram website, allowing users to send direct messages from a web version using WebSocket technology. In May, Instagram made it possible to send website links in messages, and also added support for sending photos in their original portrait or landscape orientation without cropping. Additionally, users can now reply to private messages with text, emoji or by clicking on a heart icon. When users receive a private message from someone they don't follow, the message is marked as pending and the user must accept to see it. The rapid and easily consumable nature of short-form videos can elicit high levels of dopamine; since dopamine serves as a motivator rather than a direct source of pleasure, individuals are compelled to seek rewarding activities and become addicted to them. According to Dr. Anna Lembke, a psychiatrist and chief of Stanford University's dual diagnosis addiction clinic, brief attention-grabbing videos act as powerful stimuli triggering dopamine surges akin to other addictive behaviors. 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.