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.
Users can also view statistics on their videos and see other user’s videos that are trending in the Inspiration tab. The app includes some AI features and the ability to post directly to Instagram or Facebook. The tab was later expanded again in November 2016 after Instagram Live launched to display an algorithmically curated page of the « best » Instagram Live videos currently airing. In June 2012, Instagram introduced « Explore », a tab inside the app that displays popular photos, photos taken at nearby locations, and search.
Propaganda usage
- In December, the company began rolling out the abilities for users to turn off the comments and, for private accounts, remove followers.
- Users report higher body surveillance (habitual monitoring of one’s shape and size), appearance-related pressure, eating-disorder-related-pathology and lower body satisfaction than non-users.
- Users can take photos and edit them using built-in filters and other tools, then share them on other social media platforms like Facebook.
- As of 2014update, Instagram’s users are divided equally, with 50% iPhone owners and 50% Android owners.
- 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.
- However, Brailovskaia & Margraf 2018 found a significant positive relationship between Instagram membership and extraversion, life satisfaction, and social support.
In November 2019, it was announced that Instagram would start to roll out a new feature to Brazil known as Instagram Reels. Albums were introduced in February 2017, which allow up to 10 minutes of video to be shared in one post. The addition was seen by some in the technology media as Facebook’s attempt at competing with the then-popular video-sharing application Vine.
Features and tools
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 Instagram and parent company Meta, accusing them of contributing to a youth mental health crisis due to the addictive nature of the platforms. 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.
App support
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.
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 0xbet 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.
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 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.
The Android version of Instagram was released in April 2012, followed by a feature-limited desktop interface in November 2012, a Fire OS app in June 2014, an app for Windows 10 in October 2016, and an app for iPadOS in September 2025. This renaming gave an even bigger response, it rapidly gained popularity, reaching 1 million registered users in two months, 10 million in a year, and 1 billion in June 2018. The developer has not yet indicated which accessibility features this app supports. You can find your favorite apps—like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and more—under the Apps section in the left navigation of the Microsoft 365 Copilot web app. Microsoft 365 also includes security features and device management tools. AI is built into the Office apps you know and trust.
Mark AI : Story, Videos, Reels
Instagram has been criticized in India for not taking steps to counter homophobic and transphobic contents. Instagram-based activism (as well as other social media) has been criticized and dismissed for being performative, reductionist, and overly focused on aesthetics. In June 2020, because of the Black Lives Matter movement, Instagram became more widely used as a social justice platform. Research shows Instagram browsing predicts social comparison, which generates FOMO, which can lead to depression. However, Brailovskaia & Margraf 2018 found a significant positive relationship between Instagram membership and extraversion, life satisfaction, and social support. Comments related to appearance on Instagram can lead to higher dissatisfaction with one’s body.
- The study reported evidence of online posts affecting offline behavior, but stopped short of claiming causality.
- 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.
- Instagram Reels is the short-form section of the American social media platform Instagram.
- Users can connect their Instagram account to other social networking sites, enabling them to share uploaded photos to those sites.
- By doing so, users can easily access curated Stories from the past week that they might not have seen previously.
- Also in July 2019, Instagram announced that it would implement new features designed to reduce harassment and negative comments on the service.
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.
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. 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. In May 2021, Instagram began allowing users in some regions to add pronouns to their profile page. In March 2021, Instagram launched a new feature in which four people can go live at once. In August 2020, Instagram began a pivot to video, introducing a new feature called « Reels ».
Initially a purely photo-sharing service, Instagram incorporated 15-second video sharing in June 2013. 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. In December 2017, Instagram began to allow users to follow hashtags, which display relevant highlights of the topic in their feeds.
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. On October 6, 2010, the Burbn Beta iOS app was made available through the App Store, though this was still just a prototype only. On October 21, 2009, the first web-based prototype of Burbn was released online, although it was basic and non-functional, it featured a registration waiting list.
Instagram encourages users to make tags both specific and relevant, rather than tagging generic words like « photo », to make photographs stand out and to attract like-minded Instagram users. In April 2018, Instagram launched its version of a portrait mode called « focus mode », which gently blurs the background of a photo or video while keeping the subject in focus when selected. The feature originally limited photos to the square format, but received an update in August to enable portrait and landscape photos instead. In August, Instagram announced that it would start organizing comments into threads, letting users more easily interact with replies.
Users can now only receive one direct message from accounts that they do not follow, and must approve the message request before further messages can be sent. 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.