Instagram Decides Not to Become TikTok Just Yet
Instagram has started to roll back some recent changes to its service following widespread complaints about it becoming Facebook's take on TikTok rather than maintaining its own identity.
Those unpopular changes include the addition of full-screen posts and the decision to fill users' feeds with content from accounts they don't follow. (Which, according to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, is something Facebook and Instagram will push even harder in the coming months.)
Both of those changes were clearly inspired by TikTok—to put it lightly—and Instagram users weren't pleased. So now the company has decided to put things back the way they were.
"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 head Adam Mosseri told The Verge(Opens in a new window) on July 28. "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."
It's clear that Instagram didn't only make those changes because users complained. The service reportedly(Opens in a new window) has more than 2 billion monthly active users; any change is going to be met with criticism. But it seems the platform's own data showed that its latest changes were problematic.
"For the new feed designs, people are frustrated and the usage data isn’t great," Mosseri told The Verge. "So there I think that we need to take a big step back, regroup, and figure out how we want to move forward."
That doesn't necessarily mean that Meta is done using Instagram to compete with TikTok. But at least for now Instagram users will be able to enjoy the platform as it currently exists.
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