In June, Instagram head Adam Mosseri said the app was no longer a photo-sharing app. The Facebook-owned platform is dropping IGTV in favor of “Instagram Video.”
The IGTV app, however, isn’t going away. Instagram tells us it will now be rebranded as “Instagram Video” and will host the “Instagram Video” formatted content, along with Instagram Live videos. But it will not host Reels videos.
With today’s update, users will still be able to upload their non-Reels videos in the same way as before — by clicking on the plus sign (+) in the top-right corner of the Instagram home page and selecting “Post.” Videos can be up to 60 minutes in length.
Facebook and other services that it owns – Instagram and WhatsApp were down for users around the world on Monday.
In light of an investigation from the Wall Street Journal, the company announced it will pause its project to create Instagram Kids.
Shannon Morse joins host Charlotte Henry to discuss the life of a content creator and independent media maker. They discuss the writing, filming, and editing process, plus all the gear in Shannon’s new studio.
Instagram announced Monday that it is asking users to confirm their birthday if they have not shared it with the photo-sharing service before. Pavni Diwanji, VP of Youth Products at the Facebook-owned app, said in a blog post that it was aiming to create better safety features for younger users.
First, we’ll start to ask you for your birthday when you open Instagram. We’ll show you a notification a handful of times and if you haven’t provided us with your birthday by a certain point, you’ll need to share it to continue using Instagram. This information is necessary for new features we’re developing to protect young people. Second, if you see warning screens placed on posts, we’ll ask you for your birthday before you can see the post. These screens aren’t new, and we already show them on posts that may be sensitive or graphic, but we don’t currently ask for your birthday when viewing these posts. Now, we’ll start asking for your birthday on some of these screens if you haven’t shared it with us previously.
It’s always interesting when multiple listeners have the same problem, and today you can listen as John and Dave dig into issues with Mac minis and restarting. We think your two favorite geeks have the answer! And that’s what happens here, you ask questions, we provide answers… and Quick Tips… and Cool Stuff Found, too! Press play and enjoy learning at least five new things!
Instagram has launched a Sensitive Content Control feature for content that appears in the Explore tab.
This new feature gives you control over sensitive content. You can decide to leave things as they are or you can adjust the Sensitive Content Control to see more or less of some types of sensitive content. We recognize that everybody has different preferences for what they want to see in Explore, and this control will give people more choice over what they see.
Forty-four attorneys general wrote a letter in protest of Facebook’s plans to create Instagram for Kids.
Facebook is displaying a message in its apps on iOS 14.5 that tells people to let it track you in order to keep its services free.
Instagram links shared via iMessage have not been showing the link preview. An Instagram spokesperson confirmed this was a bug.
Your Top 9 Instagram posts of each year is a trend that has been going on for several years now. You probably don’t want to give websites access to your Instagram account just to see these photos. Or, maybe you don’t care. In any case, CNN has a short guide to safely do it with apps called Top Nine and Best Nine.
When you give your email to Top Nine, the service uses it to send you your yearly roundup, but may also contact you in the future for marketing, the company’s privacy policy says. The emails may come from Top Nine and its affiliate companies, but each one will contain instructions on how to “opt-out” of these messages.
If it doesn’t automatically use your email from Instagram, you could try a disposable email service like TempMail.
The Federal Trade Commission as well as 48 attorneys general have filed two lawsuits against Facebook on Wednesday.
Certain Instagram users found out on Tuesday that when they opened the app, they saw a banner that said, “Tomorrow is Election Day.” Ignore that because as you’ll see everywhere else in the news, TODAY is Election Day. Also, check out Charlotte’s article if you want to stay informed of the results.
“While we turned off the ‘Tomorrow is Election Day’ notice last night, it was cached for a small group of people if their app hadn’t been restarted,” Instagram wrote on Twitter on Tuesday, responding to a number of users who had received the message. “It’s resolving itself as people restart.”
Instagram’s Unlink Account feature is deceiving, at least when it comes to Facebook. Since Instagram is a Facebook company your two accounts will forever be connected.
That’s because the wealth of data that Facebook collects through its multiple services is more than enough to properly identify users’ various accounts and link them to one another. Even in cases where a different name, email address, or device was used to create each account—be it a throwaway WhatsApp profile, stalker Instagram account, or joke Facebook profile—Facebook often is able to suss out who is actually behind the account and whether they have accounts on other Facebook-owned apps.
Facebook is being accused of accessing peoples’ cameras through Instagram, thanks to a iOS 14 feature that tells you when your camera is active.
Facebook denied the reports and blamed a bug, which it said it was correcting, for triggering what it described as false notifications that Instagram was accessing iPhone cameras.
In the complaint filed Thursday in federal court in San Francisco, New Jersey Instagram user Brittany Conditi contends the app’s use of the camera is intentional and done for the purpose of collecting “lucrative and valuable data on its users that it would not otherwise have access to.”
Facebook: “It’s a bug because you weren’t supposed to know we were doing this.”
Andrew Orr and Jeff Butts join host Kelly Guimont to discuss Security Friday news and how to encrypt email on iOS devices.
Instagram will start asking “suspicious accounts” to verify their identity with a government ID. Instagram claims this will help users understand when accounts are “attempting to mislead their followers” although it’s not clear what kind of behavior the Facebook-owned company thinks is suspicious. One reason is shared: If most of your followers are in a different country than you.
IDs will be stored securely and deleted within 30 days once our review is completed, and won’t be shared on the person’s profile as pseudonymity is still an important part of Instagram.
Andrew Orr and Bryan Chaffin join host Kelly Guimont to discuss Security (read: Facebook) news, Apple Card id protection, and Fortnite. Extended edition brought to you by intellectual laziness.
Security researcher Saugat Pokharel found that Instagram didn’t delete his photos and messages from its servers, even though he deleted them.
Facebook-owned Instagram faces a lawsuit that accuses the company of illegally collects biometric data from users.
