New York: Instagram is halting its plans to make its social media platform more like heavyweight rival TikTok after criticism from users, chief among them mega-influencers Kim Kardashian and half-sister Kylie Jenner.
Instagram, which is owned by Facebook’s parent company Meta Platforms, rolled out plans to alter its algorithm so that users would be exposed to more video content from people outside their circle of friends and followers.
Meta is under pressure to perform after Facebook reported that it lost users for the first time ever this year. The company also reported a drop in revenue for the first time in its history.
Jenner and Kardashian, who have a combined following on Instagram of 686 million users, posted a message on the photo-sharing app earlier this week which read: “Make Instagram Instagram Again. Stop trying to be TikTok. I just want to see cute photos of my friends. Sincerely, Everyone.”
Instagram sought to institute changes to its platform in order to appeal to younger users who may be inclined to gravitate toward TikTok.
The app wants to automatically have almost all video posts less than 15 minutes long be shared in the Reels format. That means there will be no difference between Reels and video posts, according to CreativeBloq.
Instagram was also planning to allow people to use any public posts in their own Reels. Prior to the planned change, users were only able to remix Reels.
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