Instagram reverses TikTokesque changes to its app post backlash

Instagram, the meta-owned photo-sharing app, will roll back some of its new features which mimic TikTok following severe backlash from users.

A test version in which the app opened to full-screen photographs and videos is going back and the app is reportedly tweaking its algorithm so that users are not shown a video from accounts they do not follow.

Users missed seeing updates from their friends, what their favourite brands are up to, and reading posts from their favourite creators. Instead, they increasingly see suggested Reels and branded content basis data the app collects from users’ time spent on Instagram.

“I'm glad we took a risk — if we're not failing every once in a while, we're not thinking big enough or bold enough,” Instagram chief Adam Mosseri said in an interview with Platformer.

“But we definitely need to take a big step back and regroup. [When] we've learned a lot, then we come back with some sort of new idea or iteration. So we're going to work through that.”

Users for a while had bemoaned the app’s attempts to ape short-form video app TikTok by making Reels its focus. The criticism reached a crescendo when sisters and influencer queens Kylie Jenner and Kim Kardashian, railed against the change.

The Instagram chief, in a video from last week, had said, “We’re going to continue to support photos… I do believe more and more of Instagram is going to become video over time…”

However, in the interview , he went on to admit, “For the new feed designs, people are frustrated and the usage data isn’t great,” he said. “So there I think that we need to take a big step back, regroup, and figure out how we want to move forward.”

Photo by Solen Feyissa on Unsplash