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Instagram said the algorithm was designed so that users would see more of the photos by users that they liked, but there was significant negative feedback, with many users asking their followers to turn on post notifications in order to make sure they see updates. In October 2015, it released Boomerang, a video app that combines photos into short, one-second videos that play back-and-forth in a loop. In July 2014, it released Bolt, a messaging app where users click on a friend’s profile photo to quickly send an image, with the content disappearing after being seen. 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.

• In April 2020, Direct became accessible from the Instagram website, allowing users to send direct messages from a web version using WebSocket technology.
• After being released in October 2010, Instagram had one million registered users in December 2010.
• In 2021, Instagram announced that like counts would return to be publicly viewable by default.
• In December 2017, Instagram began to allow users to follow hashtags, which display relevant highlights of the topic in their feeds.
• The trends deemed the most popular on the platform often highlight a specific day of the week to post the material on.

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.

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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”.

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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.
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 December 2017, Instagram began to allow users to follow hashtags, which display relevant highlights of the topic in their feeds. On March 1, 2021, Instagram https://www.cuscocasinoonline.nl/ launched a new feature named Instagram Live Rooms, which lets four people go live together. In November, Instagram began to support Alt text to add descriptions of photos for the visually impaired. In September 2011, a new version of the app included new and live filters, instant tilt–shift, high-resolution photographs, optional borders, one-click rotation, and an updated icon.

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She said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal in September 2013 that the company should be ready to begin selling advertising by September 2014 as a way to generate business from a popular entity that had not yet created profit for its parent company. Instagram verifies accounts based on its own discretion, and not all accounts meeting the criteria may be verified. This marked a significant shift from the previous system where verification was typically initiated by Instagram itself for accounts it deemed to be of public interest or high-profile. Instagram introduced a verification feature, known as the blue verified badge, in December 2014. In September 2025, Instagram began testing a Reels-first user interface in India and South Korea.

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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.

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.

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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”).

• It also added messaging features, the ability to include multiple images or videos in a single post, and a Stories feature—similar to its main competitor, Snapchat, which allowed users to post their content to a sequential feed, with each post accessible to others for 24 hours.
• In May 2017, Instagram expanded the augmented reality sticker feature to support face filters, letting users add specific visual features onto their faces.
• Lub & Trub 2015 showed that following more strangers increases social comparisons and depressive symptoms.
• Since the app’s launch it had used the Foursquare API technology to provide named location tagging.
• 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.
• 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).
• 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.

The developer, Google, indicated that the app’s privacy practices may include handling of data as described below. Get the official YouTube app on iPhones and iPads.
In April 2016, Instagram released a Windows 10 Mobile app, after years of demand from Microsoft and the public to release an app for the platform. Since the app’s launch it had used the Foursquare API technology to provide named location tagging. Britain’s Office of Fair Trading approved the deal on August 14, 2012, and on August 22, 2012, the Federal Trade Commission in the U.S. closed its investigation, allowing the deal to proceed. On April 9, 2012, Facebook, Inc. (now Meta Platforms) bought Instagram for $1 billion (equivalent to $1,346,000,000 in 2024) in cash and stock, with a plan to keep the company independently managed. On April 3, 2012, Instagram released a version of its app for Android phones, and it was downloaded more than one million times in less than one day.
In July, Instagram started allowing users to respond to Stories content by sending photos and videos, complete with Instagram effects such as filters, stickers, and hashtags. It also added messaging features, the ability to include multiple images or videos in a single post, and a Stories feature—similar to its main competitor, Snapchat, which allowed users to post their content to a sequential feed, with each post accessible to others for 24 hours. 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 July 2016, it announced that users would be able to turn off comments for their posts, as well as control the language used in comments by inputting words they consider offensive, which will ban applicable comments from showing up. In August 2016, Instagram launched Instagram Stories, a feature that allows users to take photos, add effects and layers, and add them to their Instagram story.