According to a story that was published in the Platformer tech newsletter on Thursday, Instagram is going to stop developing some features that users have protested against and argued make the social network too similar to TikTok on July 28th.
This week, some of the most vocal users who posted messages on social media asked the corporation behind Instagram to “make Instagram Instagram again” and to stop attempting to be like TikTok. Celebrity sisters Kim Kardashian and Kylie Jenner were among the most vocal users who made these requests.
The term originated from a petition posted on change.org, which, as of late Thursday, had collected more than 229,000 signatures from supporters.
“Let’s go back to our roots with Instagram and remember that the intention behind Instagram was to share photos, for Pete’s sake,” it was stated in the petition.
The chief executive officer of Instagram, Adam Mosseri, provided a response to the uproar earlier this week by posting a video on Twitter. In the video, he stated that the features were a work in progress and that they were being tested with a limited number of users.
A number of changes were implemented, including highlighting short-form video content, presenting it on the full screen similar to how TikTok does, and promoting posts from unknown users.
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“I’m glad we took a risk,” In an interview that took place on Thursday with Casey Newton of Platformer, Mosseri was cited as saying the following.
“But we definitely need to take a big step back and regroup. If we’re not failing every once in a while, we’re not thinking big enough or bold enough,” Mosseri added.
Mosseri claimed that the transition to more video would happen even if the service did nothing since users are increasingly sharing and seeking video snippets. This is because of the rise in popularity of short-form video content.
“If you look at what people share on Instagram, that is shifting more and more to video over time,” Mosseri said, adding that “We are going to have to lean into that shift.”
During an earnings call on Wednesday, Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta, expressed his support for this position by stating that more and more people are viewing videos online.
Both Meta and Google are among the businesses that face greater competition from TikTok for people’s attention, and both companies have created their own forms of short-form video sharing in response to this.
