Instagram

Acquired by Facebook in 2012 for what is now the bargain price of $1 billion, Instagram continues to be a flagship platform within the Meta portfolio and TechCrunch continues to cover its evolution. Instagram has recently shifted its focus toward Reels, its short-form video product that is strongly reminiscent of TikTok, and its latest offshoot platform Threads, which is the company’s X challenger that could also become the wider public’s introduction to the fediverse and federated social networks.

Photographers say the social media giant is applying a ‘Made with AI’ label to photos they took, causing confusion for users.

Meta is tagging real photos as ‘Made with AI,’ say photographers

Instagram is introducing the ability for users to broadcast live to just their Close Friends list, the company announced on Thursday. The new “Close Friends on Live” feature allows users…

Instagram now lets users livestream exclusively to their Close Friends list

Instagram Threads is rolling out the ability for users to signal which sort of posts they wanted to see more or less of by swiping.

You can now customize your For You feed on Threads using swipes

The change would see Instagram becoming more like the free version of YouTube, which requires users to view ads before and in the middle of watching videos.

Instagram confirms test of ‘unskippable’ ads

Instagram is testing a way for creators to experiment with reels without committing to having them displayed on their profiles, giving the social network a possible edge over TikTok and…

Instagram tests ‘trial reels’ that don’t display to a creator’s followers

Instagram is expanding the scope of its “Limits” tool specifically for teenagers that would let them restrict unwanted interactions with people.

Instagram now lets teens limit interactions to their ‘Close Friends’ group to combat harassment

Meta is updating its Ray-Ban smart glasses with new hands-free functionality, the company announced on Wednesday. Most notably, users can now share an image from their smart glasses directly to…

Meta’s Ray-Ban smart glasses now let you share images directly to your Instagram Story

Meta is once again taking on its competitors by developing a feature that borrows concepts from others — in this case, BeReal and Snapchat. The company is developing a feature…

Meta’s latest experiment borrows from BeReal’s and Snapchat’s core ideas

Facebook and Instagram are under formal investigation in the European Union over child protection concerns, the Commission announced Thursday. The proceedings follow a raft of requests for information to parent…

EU opens child safety probes of Facebook and Instagram, citing addictive design concerns

Meta’s newest social network, Threads, is starting its own fact-checking program after piggybacking on Instagram and Facebook’s network for a few months.

Threads finally starts its own fact-checking program

Over the weekend, Instagram announced that it is expanding its creator marketplace to 10 new countries — this marketplace connects brands with creators to foster collaboration. The new regions include…

Instagram expands its creator marketplace to 10 new countries

Meta is encouraging more users to post to its X rival Threads. In its latest experiment, the company is providing an easy toggle for users to cross-post from Instagram to…

Threads is testing cross-posting from Instagram globally

Threads users can now exert more control over who can quote their posts. This builds on a feature that already allows Threads users to limit who can reply to their…

Farewell, dunks? Threads launches quote controls for all users

Instagram is adding a handful of new features for Stories to give users more creative ways to share content and engage with each other, the company announced on Friday. Most…

Instagram now lets you post a secret Story that viewers can uncover with a DM

Instagram is introducing a few new changes to its ranking systems to better highlight content from smaller, original creators.

Instagram is updating its algorithm to surface more content from smaller, original creators

Meta’s Threads social network passed the 150 million monthly users mark recently, but the company is not slowing down its growth engine. To increase engagement, the social media giant is…

Meta confirms launch of a bonus program for creators on Threads

Featured Article

Gen Z is losing its political voice on social media

President Joe Biden signed the bill this week that could ban TikTok from the U.S. if its parent company ByteDance doesn’t sell the platform. According to young political content creators, the ban could decimate Gen Z’s access to political news and information. “An unfortunately large amount of 18- to 24-year-olds…

11:27 am PDT • April 25, 2024
Gen Z is losing its political voice on social media

Threads and Instagram head Adam Mosseri announced today that Threads is launching a new feature that lets users filter out words and phrases from their feeds and mentions. The “Hidden…

Threads launches custom mute filters, teases controls for quote posts

Meta’s making several big moves today to promote its AI services across its platform. The company has upgraded its AI chatbot with its newest large language model, Llama 3, and…

Meta adds its AI chatbot, powered by Llama 3, to the search bar across its apps

TikTok is rolling out its Instagram competitor, TikTok Notes, in select markets. The app is available on the Google Play Store and Apple App Store in Canada and Australia, the…

TikTok starts testing its Instagram competitor TikTok Notes in Canada and Australia

The Oversight Board, Meta’s semi-independent policy council, is turning its attention to how the company’s social platforms are handling explicit, AI-generated images. Tuesday, it announced investigations into two separate cases…

Meta’s Oversight Board probes explicit AI-generated images posted on Instagram and Facebook

Meta-owned social network Threads is finally testing a “Recent” filter to sort search results.

After struggling with real-time trends, Threads tests a ‘recent’ filter for search results

Meta will “temporarily” shutter Threads in Turkey on April 29, in response to an injunction imposed by the country’s competition authority.

Meta to close Threads in Turkey to comply with injunction prohibiting data sharing with Instagram

Meta is pushing ahead with its efforts to make its generative AI-powered products available to more users. Apart from testing Meta AI chatbot with users in countries like India on…

Meta is testing an AI-powered search bar in Instagram

Meta said on Thursday that it is testing new features on Instagram intended to help safeguard young people from unwanted nudity or sextortion scams. This includes a feature called “Nudity…

Meta will auto-blur nudity in Instagram DMs in latest teen safety step

If you haven’t been seeing much political content on Instagram lately, there’s a reason for that. Since March, Instagram and Threads have instituted a new default setting that limits political…

Hundreds of creators sign letter slamming Meta’s limit on political content

After opening its developer API to select companies for testing in March, Meta’s Twitter/X competitor Threads is now introducing developer documentation and a sign-up sheet for interested parties ahead of…

Meta’s X competitor Threads invites developers to sign up for API access, publishes docs

TikTok’s upcoming Instagram competitor app for sharing photos could be named TikTok Notes, according to screenshots posted by users. TikTok also confirmed the app was in development. Over the last…

TikTok’s Instagram competitor likely to be named TikTok Notes

Despite its similarities, Instagram Threads is no X. That’s not to say people weren’t discussing the earthquake on Threads — many were.

Meta explains why the NYC/NJ earthquake didn’t trend earlier in the day

For the second time in just over a month, Meta’s apps, including WhatsApp, and to some extent, Messenger and Instagram, faced outages and intermittent issues. While it’s rare for services…

WhatsApp was down in Meta’s second big outage this year