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.

• Instagram denied intentional censorship and attributed the deletion of Palestinian posts to glitches.
• 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.
• 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 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.
• One exception was in January 2020, when Instagram and its parent company, Facebook, Inc., removed posts “that voice support for slain Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani to comply with US sanctions”.

In May 2021, Instagram announced a new accessibility feature for videos on Instagram Reels and Stories to allow creators to place closed captions on their content. Since February 2017, up to ten pictures or videos can be included in a single post, with the content appearing as a swipeable carousel. The move was seen as a way to prevent users from deleting photos that don’t garner a desired number of “likes” or are deemed boring, but also as a way to limit the “emergent behavior” of deleting photos, which deprives the service of 0xbet content. The feature was updated in April 2017 to let users organize saved posts into named collections. Users can upload photographs and short videos, follow other users’ feeds, and geotag images with the name of a location.

Similar apps

• Recently Instagram has come up with an option for users to apply for a verified account badge; however, this does not guarantee every user who applies will get the verified blue tick.
• From June 2012 to June 2013, Instagram approximately doubled their number of users.
• Meta issued a public apology, stating that a technical error led to the unintended recommendation of such content.
• Create images, posters, banners, videos, surveys and more with easy-to-use templates.
• In November 2012, Instagram launched website profiles, allowing anyone to see user feeds from a web browser with limited functionality, as well as a selection of badges, and web widget buttons to link to profiles.
• In June 2014, Instagram announced the rollout of ads in the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia, with ads starting to roll out that autumn.

In April 2024, Instagram announced that they would start testing new tools “within weeks” to fight sextortion, a form of blackmail involving intimate pictures sent online. In December 2023, Instagram launched a podcast titled “Close Friends Only” featuring conversations among celebrities. Also in February 2023, Zuckerberg announced that Meta would start selling blue “verified” badges on Instagram and Facebook. In September 2022, Ireland’s Data Protection Commission fined the company $402 million under privacy laws recently adopted by the European Union over how it handled the privacy data of minors. Instagram also announced that adults would not be allowed to message teens who don’t follow them as part of a series of new child safety policies. In February 2021, Instagram began testing a new feature called Vertical Stories, said by some sources to be inspired by TikTok.

Loneliness and social exclusion

It was reported that these changes were primarily intended to discourage third-party clients replicating the entire Instagram experience (due to increasing monetization of the service), and security reasons (such as preventing abuse by automated click farms, and the hijacking of accounts). Instagram has developed and released three stand-alone apps with specialized functionality. In June 2021, Instagram launched a native affiliate marketing tool creators can use to earn commissions based on sales. In April 2019, Instagram added the option to “Checkout on Instagram”, which allows merchants to sell products directly through the Instagram app. In February 2016, Instagram announced that it had 200,000 advertisers on the platform. In June 2014, Instagram announced the rollout of ads in the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia, with ads starting to roll out that autumn.

Edits: Video Editor

According to the IFJ, Instagram is popular among Iranians because it is seen as an outlet for freedom and a “window to the world”.Still, Iran has sentenced citizens to prison for posts made on their Instagram accounts. 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. In contrast, the level of agreement expressed in creating Instagram posts was lower, which demonstrates that Instagram’s emphasis on visual communication is widely accepted by young people in social communication. The motives for using Instagram among young people are mainly to look at posts, particularly for the sake of social interactions and recreation. Recently Instagram has come up with an option for users to apply for a verified account badge; however, this does not guarantee every user who applies will get the verified blue tick. From June 2012 to June 2013, Instagram approximately doubled their number of users.
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.
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.

InShot – AI Video Editor

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.

Body image

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.

User behavior

Khodarahimi & Fathi 2017 found evidence users displayed higher levels of depressive and anxious symptoms compared to non-users. 13% of British and 6% of American teenager users with suicidal thoughts could trace them to Instagram use. The second recruited 10 monthly users for a 5-day diary study, where they recorded their online habits. Instagram has since been accused of extending the practice to censor posts under vague and inconsistent circumstances, particularly in regards to sexually suggestive material. In a now-deleted Facebook post, Instagram wrote that “When developing content, we recommend focusing on your business objective or goal rather than hashtags”.
In August 2016, Instagram launched Instagram Stories, a feature that allows users to take photos, add effects and layers, and add them to their Instagram story. It was integrated with Instagram’s “Close friends” feature, so that users could send images, photos, and texts privately to others, and also had Instagram’s photo editing system embedded into the app. The new app added support for videos (viewing and creating posts or stories, and viewing live streams), album posts and direct messages. In September 2017, the company announced that public users would be able to limit who can comment on their content, such as only their followers or people they follow.
In June 2018, the daily active story users of Instagram had reached 400 million users, and monthly active users had reached 1 billion active users. Later in May, TechCrunch reported about tests of a Location Stories feature in Instagram Stories, where public Stories content at a certain location are compiled and displayed on a business, landmark or place’s Instagram page. This setting can be changed to allow unlimited messages from other accounts that the user does not follow.