The move garnered severe criticism from users, prompting Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom to write a blog post one day later, announcing that they would “remove” the offending language from the policy. There was no option for users to opt out of the changed Terms of Service without deleting their accounts before the new policy went into effect on January 16, 2013. The Verge wrote that cybersecurity firm RepKnight had found contact information for multiple actors, musicians, and athletes, and singer Selena Gomez’s account was used by the hackers to post naked photos of her ex-boyfriend Justin Bieber. Correlations have been made between Instagram content and dissatisfaction with one’s body, as a result of people comparing themselves to other users. 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”. A few days after a fire incident that happened in the Koryo Hotel in North Korea on June 11, 2015, authorities blocked Instagram to prevent photos of the incident from being spread.
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.

User characteristics and behavior

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 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.

Sharenting risks

In 2019, Instagram began to test the hiding of like counts for posts made by its users, with the feature later made available to everyone. Picardo et al. 2020 examined the relationship between self-harm posts and actual self-harm offline and found such content had negative emotional effects on some users. Also in 2020, Instagram rolled out a feature titled “suggested posts”, which adds posts from accounts Instagram thinks a user would like to such user’s feed. Instagram said the algorithm was designed so that users would see more of the photos by users that they liked, but there was significant negative feedback, with many users asking their followers to turn on post notifications in order to make sure they see updates. In October 2015, it released Boomerang, a video app that combines photos into short, one-second videos that play back-and-forth in a loop. In July 2014, it released Bolt, a messaging app where users click on a friend’s profile photo to quickly send an image, with the content disappearing after being seen.
However, unlike post likes, the user who posted a comment does not receive notifications about comment likes in their notification inbox. On May 11, 2016, Instagram revamped its design, adding a black-and-white flat design theme for the app’s user interface, and a less skeuomorphistic, more abstract, “modern” and colorful icon. The slideshow banner on the top of profile pages, which simultaneously slide-showed seven picture tiles of pictures posted by the user, alternating at different times in a random order, has been removed. Furthermore, one row of pictures only has three instead of five photos to match the mobile layout. In June 2015, the desktop website user interface was redesigned to become more flat and minimalistic, but with more screen space for each photo and to resemble the layout of Instagram’s mobile website. 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.

2017: Redesign and Windows app

• According to the research, Instagram has a higher impact on appearance comparison than TikTok or Snapchat.
• Instagram introduced a verification feature, known as the blue verified badge, in December 2014.
• The leak included presentations seen by company executives, and the findings mentioned CEO Mark Zuckerberg in 2020.
• The tab was later expanded again in November 2016 after Instagram Live launched to display an algorithmically curated page of the “best” Instagram Live videos currently airing.
• Users who follow each other can send private messages with photos and videos, in contrast to the public-only requirement that was previously in place.
• Studies have shown users who take more selfies before making a post, and those who strategically present themselves by editing selfies, report higher levels of body surveillance and body dissatisfaction, and lower esteem overall.

In October 2013, Instagram announced that video and image ads would soon appear in feeds for users in the United States, with the first image advertisements displaying on November 1, 2013. In December 2024, Instagram announced that it was trialing a feature designed to help users reconnect with content they may have missed from their mutual followers. A few days later, Instagram announced “Story Search”, in which users can search for geographic locations or hashtags and the app displays relevant public Stories content featuring the search term. In January 2017, Instagram launched skippable ads, where five-second photo and 15-second video ads appear in-between different stories.

• Paid verification allowed eligible Instagram users to request verification for their accounts via paying a fee, rather than relying solely on meeting the platform’s traditional criteria for verification.
• The company will put suggested posts ahead of posts from people who the user is following in the Instagram feed, citing positive reception as the reason for this change.
• This grew to 150 million in August 2011, and by June 2023, there were over 50 billion photos uploaded to the service.
• In May 2021, Instagram began allowing users in some regions to add pronouns to their profile page.
• Similarly, an app for Windows 10 personal computers and tablets was released in October 2016.
• The app received around 25,000 registrations that day, though it remained a public beta.
• 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.

Mark AI : Story, Videos, Reels

On March 1, 2021, Instagram launched a new feature named Instagram Live Rooms, which lets four people go live together. In November, Instagram began to support Alt text to add descriptions of photos for the visually impaired. In September 2011, a new version of the app included new and live filters, instant tilt–shift, high-resolution photographs, optional borders, one-click rotation, and an updated icon. On September 3, 2025, Instagram launched a native iPadOS app, which before relied on the iOS app and did not utilize the larger screen size of tablets.
However, new incidents of illegal drug trade have occurred in the aftermath of the 2013 revelation, with Facebook, Inc., Instagram’s parent company, asking users who come across such content to report the material, at which time a “dedicated team” reviews the information. People can’t buy things on Instagram, we are simply a place where people share photos and videos. We encourage people who come across illegal or inappropriate content to report it to us using the built-in reporting tools next to every photo, video or comment, so we can take action. In 2013, the BBC discovered that users, mostly located in the United States, were posting images of drugs they were selling, attaching specific hashtags, and then completing transactions via instant messaging applications such as WhatsApp.
The Android version of Instagram was released in April 2012, followed by a feature-limited desktop interface in 0xbet November 2012, a Fire OS app in June 2014, an app for Windows 10 in October 2016, and an app for iPadOS in September 2025. This renaming gave an even bigger response, it rapidly gained popularity, reaching 1 million registered users in two months, 10 million in a year, and 1 billion in June 2018. The developer has not yet indicated which accessibility features this app supports. You can find your favorite apps—like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and more—under the Apps section in the left navigation of the Microsoft 365 Copilot web app. Microsoft 365 also includes security features and device management tools. AI is built into the Office apps you know and trust.
On December 20, Instagram announced that the advertising section of the policy would be reverted to its original October 2010 version. The Daily Beast was provided with a sample of the affected accounts and could confirm that, while many of the email addresses could be found with a Google search in public sources, some did not return relevant Google search results and thus were from private sources. Hours after the hack, a searchable database was posted online, charging $10 per search. However, the following month, more details emerged, with a group of hackers selling contact information online, with the affected number of accounts in the “millions” rather than the previously assumed limitation on verified accounts. The company said in a statement that it had “fixed the bug swiftly” and was running an investigation. In June 2017, Instagram announced that it would automatically attempt to filter offensive, harassing, and “spammy” comments by default.
In November 2018, Instagram added the ability for business accounts to add product links directing users to a purchase page or to save them to a “shopping list”. The new analytics page, known as Instagram Insights, allowed business accounts to view top posts, reach, impressions, engagement and demographic data. The company launched carousel image ads in October 2015, and video carousel ads in March 2016. Paid verification allowed eligible Instagram users to request verification for their accounts via paying a fee, rather than relying solely on meeting the platform’s traditional criteria for verification.
This grew to 150 million in August 2011, and by June 2023, there were over 50 billion photos uploaded to the service. After being released in October 2010, Instagram had one million registered users in December 2010. The study reported evidence of online posts affecting offline behavior, but stopped short of claiming causality.

Instagram Reels

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.
In May 2017, a survey conducted by the United Kingdom’s Royal Society for Public Health, featuring 1,479 people aged 14–24 and asking them to rate social media platforms depending on anxiety, depression, loneliness, bullying and body image, concluded that Instagram was the “worst for young mental health”. On March 11, 2022, Russia announced it would ban Instagram due to alleged “calls for violence against Russian troops” on the platform during the ongoing 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. Instagram was one of the last freely available global social media sites in Iran.
Create images, posters, banners, videos, surveys and more with easy-to-use templates. 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. The photo post had received three likes and countless comments, and in September 2017, the company’s algorithms turned the photo into an advertisement visible to Solon’s sister. The policy change and its backlash caused competing photo services to use the opportunity to “try to lure users away” by promoting their privacy-friendly services, and some services experienced substantial gains in momentum and user growth following the news. Citing misinterpretations about its intention to “communicate that we’d like to experiment with innovative advertising that feels appropriate on Instagram”, Systrom also stated that it was “our mistake that this language is confusing” and that “it is not our intention to sell your photos”.

In January 2011, Instagram introduced hashtags to help users discover both photos and each other. Users can also “archive” their posts in a private storage area, out of visibility for the public and other users. On August 2, 2024, Turkey blocked Instagram after the platform deleted posts from users offering condolences for the death of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.