In one of its latest updates, social media giant Instagram brought out a large update, which turned every video posted onto the platform into a reel, giving the application a TikTok-like feel. This was done in order to counter the increasing competition that Instagram is facing from TikTok.
With short-form video content being the most liked video format, Instagram with this update wanted to have more of it. However things went south, and an update that was meant to bring in more short-form video content actually brought in more hate towards the application.
Instagram users jumped in on Twitter and made hundred and thousands of angry tweets, calling out Instagram to take back this decision and stop making Instagram look like TikTok. Users wanted old video formats back, but the Instagram team in its efforts to counter competition refused to say that despite all criticism they want to keep focusing more on video.
However, after a sea of criticism and hate, Instagram has finally decided to revoke its decision. “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,” said the Instagram chief while speaking about taking back the decision.
This change came back after just three days of the new update, a large amount of credit for which goes towards major celebrities that also came out and expressed their dislike of the video updates. Slogans like ‘Make Instagram Instagram Again’ and ‘We don’t want another TikTok’ became trending, forcing the company to step back before it completely upsets its users.
Despite all the changes, we recommend you don’t celebrate just yet, because reading the statements by Instagram, we are pretty sure that this step back is just a temporary stop, and the company is still working to create lesser offensive ways to integrate video content into the platform.
“We’re going to have to get it to a good place if we’re going to ship it to the rest of Instagram. For the new feed designs, people are frustrated and the usage data isn’t great. So there I think that we need to take a big step back, regroup, and figure out how we want to move forward.” said Mosseri after announcing Instagram’s step back from their video updates.
