Instagram has released numerous improvements in recent years in an attempt to transition from a social media platform to an e-commerce behemoth, messaging application, and, most recently, a short-form video discovery platform comparable to TikTok.
Now this public identity crisis is bleeding into its user base.
Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, addressed the situation on Tuesday morning in a bid to prevent further damage. Wearing a bright yellow pullover and facing the camera, he attempted to quieten a mounting rebellion from prominent Instagrammers.
On Sunday, Kim Kardashian West and other high-profile personalities shared a black-and-white image that read: “Make Instagram Instagram Again. (Stop trying to be TikTok I just want to see cute photos of my friends.) Sincerely, everyone.” The viral story, written by a 21-year-old influencer named Tatiana Bruening, has more than 1.9 million likes as of Wednesday morning.
In the video, Mosseri explained that the app was in transition and that some features, such as a full-screen feed, were simply tests. “There’s a lot going on on Instagram right now,” he said. “We’re experimenting with a number of different changes to the app, and so we’re hearing a lot of concerns from all of you.” But the rapid succession of new features and tests has prompted even its most devoted users to ask if Instagram itself understands what it’s doing.
“Instagram has become overcrowded with so many different types of content happening at the same time,” Bruening said. “Everyone has been feeling the same thing at the same time, but a lot of people have been too afraid to say anything.”
Many changes to the app have been made, including but not limited to: eliminating chronological timelines, elevating photo posts, and downplaying algorithmic discovery. A Change.org petition initiated by Bruening aims to restore many of these features, including a chronological timeline, priority for photo postings, and removing the Reels video tool. By Wednesday morning, it had more than 190,000 supporters.
Instagram, which has more than 1 billion monthly active users as of 2021, is still vulnerable to competition from TikTok, which boasts about 400 million monthly active users. While Instagram continues to outpace TikTok in terms of total number of users, short-form video app use has exploded in recent years. In 2020, TikTok became the most-downloaded app in the world, and its young user base began spending more time on it than Instagram and Facebook. The earnings report from Instagram’s parent firm Meta is expected to be published on Wednesday, and it will show if TikTok has harmed its market share.
The Instagram controversy has spilled over into the physical realm. Last Saturday, several dozen content producers gathered outside the firm’s New York headquarters to protest its restrictive community standards and modifications that make locating new users difficult.
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However, the organization is attempting to move closer to the entertainment world. According to a person familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity, Instagram owner Meta is establishing an advisory board that will include top entertainment executives, managers, and publicists. The plan has been in the works for over a year, but outreach to possible board members began this week. The board will not focus on specific product improvements, but rather on how Meta may collaborate with the entertainment industry more closely. Others, on the other hand, believe Instagram’s intentions may yet be validated because only the platform has the data to see what is and isn’t working.
The fact that Instagram is putting out so much effort to challenge its basic purpose of connecting with friends and relatives, according to some pundits, speaks to how radically social media has evolved. “Making that content harder to access shows the competitive landscape they’re in right now,” said Matt Perault, director of the Center on Technology Policy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “It might be totally necessary that they pivot, but that doesn’t mean that they’ll succeed in this new world.”
Instagram will have to pay attention to the proper people and navigate the fallout from either side if it wants to weather the storm. “There’s a war between people who want Instagram to be more like Snapchat and people who want it to be more TikTok,” Woodbury said. “Right now the former group is larger and louder.”
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