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.
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.
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.
Explore
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 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.
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.
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. The same month, they also began testing the removal of ability to share feed posts to stories. After scrolling through posts from the past 48 hours, Instagram displays posts related to their interests from accounts they do not follow. Since its launch, only approximately 220,000 users globally downloaded the app, which represented less than 0.1% of Instagram’s monthly active users, indicating a lack of success in driving adoption. 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.
Create images, posters, banners, videos, surveys and more with easy-to-use templates. 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. Citing misinterpretations about its intention to “communicate that we’d like to experiment with innovative advertising that feels appropriate on Instagram”, Systrom also stated that it was “our mistake that this language is confusing” and that “it is not our intention to sell your photos”.
Version History
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.
- The tool used color analysis, metadata components, and face detection of users’ feeds.
- 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.
- After scrolling through posts from the past 48 hours, Instagram displays posts related to their interests from accounts they do not follow.
- After the update (which is rolled out to a segment of the user base) the Instagram Direct icon transforms into Facebook Messenger icon.
- 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).
- Research shows Instagram browsing predicts social comparison, which generates FOMO, which can lead to depression.
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.
App Functionality
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.
2017: Redesign and Windows app
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.
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.
Ongoing research continues to explore how media content on the platform affects user engagement. Following behind, college graduates consist of 18% and users with a high school diploma or less make up 15%. 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.
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”.
- In December 2023, Instagram launched a podcast titled “Close Friends Only” featuring conversations among celebrities.
- A 2021 study by Büttner & Rudertb showed that not being tagged in an Instagram photo triggers the feeling of social exclusion and ostracism, especially for those with higher needs to belong.
- Similar to Snapchat, the app allowed users to communicate through messaging and video chats.
- 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.
- In June 2011, it announced that it had 5 million users, which increased to 10 million in September.
- Instagrama is an American photo and short-form video sharing social networking service owned by Meta Platforms.
- 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.
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. In September 2024, Instagram added a sticker editor which allows users to cut out elements of photos and send them privately.
Lub & Trub 2015 showed that following more strangers increases social comparisons and depressive symptoms. However, Frison & Eggermont 2017 found that, among boys 0xbet and girls, browsing could predict depressive symptoms; liking and posting seemed to have no effect. The company stated it was looking into concerns raised by the regulators and parents. According to the research, Instagram has a higher impact on appearance comparison than TikTok or Snapchat. The leak included presentations seen by company executives, and the findings mentioned CEO Mark Zuckerberg in 2020. Instagram caused the userbase to fall into outrage with the December 2018 update.
July 2022 updates
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. 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. 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. However, this statement has also been called into question due to other apps with more explicit content allowed on the store, the lack of consequences for men exposing their bodies on Instagram, and for inconsistent treatment of what constitutes inappropriate exposure of the female body.