Celebrities Kim Kardashian and Kylie Jenner joined other creators on Instagram to criticize the platform’s new design.
Both shared posts in their stories calling for “Instagram to get Instagram back” on the Meta-owned platform.
This social network has recently shifted its focus to individual posts to prioritize its own reel or short video format.
But a few users want them to “stop trying to be TikTok”.
Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri admitted in a reel on Tuesday that there are “many changes at once” on the platform.
While he reassured users that the photos would remain “part of our legacy” on Instagram, he predicted that over time the platform would rely more heavily on videos.
He added that Instagram must “build on this shift” to video based on what people like, consume, share and view on Instagram while continuing to support photos.
He acknowledged that there will be additional improvements to other features that have raised concerns among creators, such as full-screen mode, recommendations, and friend post visibility.
“We will continue to try to put friends’ content at the top of the feed and first in stories whenever possible,” he said.
“But we will also need to evolve because the world is changing rapidly and we will have to change with it.”
On July 21, Instagram announced new tools for creators using the reels feature, allowing them to “remix” previous photo posts as reels and simultaneously film and react to content from the front and rear cameras in a “dual” feature. . “.
Instagram also announced that new videos under 15 minutes will be automatically uploaded in reels in the coming weeks.
In 2018, shares of social media company Snap fell after Jenner announced her decision to leave Snapchat to her 24.5 million Twitter followers.
His tweet followed a controversial redesign of Snapchat in response to growing competition among alternative social media platforms.
Referring to Snapchat as his “first love,” Jenner helped precipitate a dramatic drop in Snap shares that slashed the company’s value by $1,300 in a single day.
Jenner has 360 million followers on Instagram and Kardashian at the time of writing has 325 million followers.
Both celebrities shared a post with their followers on Monday that read, “Make Instagram Instagram again,” adding, in parentheses, “Stop trying to be a TikTok, I just want to see beautiful pictures of my friends.”
Both Kardashian and Jenner emphasized their wishes with “please”.
The original post, uploaded as a meme by 21-year-old photographer and content creator Tati Bruening, was shared on Instagram and reached other social platforms like Twitter.
Bruening said he noticed photos of his friends disappearing into the news feed while scrolling through Instagram last week.
“I was pretty pissed off, so I made a joke meme and posted it,” he said.
He added that while the post grew to “momentary disappointment”, he wasn’t surprised that it started being shared in the photo community and expanded from there.
“I’m totally in favor of the app improving and adding features like reels,” he said, adding that there is a “definitive difference” between the type of content that appears in Instagram feeds then and now.
He complains that this has left many who grew up as photographers on Instagram wondering “how to promote their platform in an app that no longer supports the content they create.”
Bruening’s petition asking Instagram to bring back chronological timelines and an “algorithm that favors photos” already has more than 140,000 signatures.
“We want to see when our friends post it,” the petition says. “The beauty of Instagram was to be INSTANT.”
The authors of the petition add: “In the early days of the app, we were all living in the moment, seeing our best moments in real time.”
You can now receive notifications from BBC News World. Download and activate our app so you don’t miss our best content.
Source: Exame
