Instagram

The head of Instagram has announced plans to introduce "sensitivity screens" in the wake of concerns about the spread of photos of self-harm on the image-based social network.

Adam Mosseri says that Instagram will use image-blurring similar to that used on Facebook to hide graphic content. The move comes in the wake of the suicide of a British teenager, the parents of whom said self-harm images on Instagram were a contributing factor.

Like Google constantly launching and closing services, the appalling disparate mess of apps produced by Facebook is something of an industry joke. Mark Zuckerberg is well-aware of this, and it seems he wants to do something about it.

Insiders at the company say plans are afoot to change the way Facebook Messenger, WhastApp and Instagram function, unifying their messaging system for better integration. On top of this, Zuckerberg also wants each of the three messaging services to feature end-to-end encryption.

Instagram users around the world were briefly thrown into a mixture of confusion, delight and anger today when timelines switched to a new horizontal scrolling mode.

Greeted by a message that Instragram was "Introducing a New Way to Move Through Posts", users found that they could now tap to scroll through their feed horizontally. This is something that Instagram is known to have been testing for a little while now, but it seems that today's rollout was entirely accidental -- albeit one that gave a tantalizing glimpse into the future. The company has now reverted feeds to the familiar verticals scrolling mode, blaming the temporary change on a bug.

It’s a fair bet that we’d never have heard of Facebook, Instagram, Google and WhatsApp if the internet hadn’t been invented, but London-based graphic designer Thomas Ollivier has put his skills into re-imagining how some of today’s top tech brands might have looked in the pre-internet days of the 1980s.

The collection of images, which he’s titled Re:Birth, provides a fun glimpse into how technology has changed in the past 30 years. And boy has it changed.

Facebook is borrowing more features from Instagram and will be pushing a Facebook Messenger update to users starting today. The camera-focused update sees the arrival of not only a new selfie mode, but also support for Boomerang looping videos and AR stickers.

The update is heavily inspired by Instagram, to the point that the new Selfie mode that automatically blurs backgrounds is practically identical to Instagram's Portrait mode.

Instagram has announced the rollout of Close Friends, a feature that makes it possible to create a list of people with whom you'd like to share Stories. This is very different to the current approach which sees Stories shared with everyone.

The feature has been beta tested for nearly a year and a half and is now ready for primetime. Rolling out to iOS and Androind in the coming days, the new feature will be welcomed by those who had concerns about privacy on Instagram.

In recent years there have been concerns about the influence it is possible to exert over election results through social media. As well as fears relating to fake news and misinformation, there have also been calls for greater transparency when it comes to revealing the funding of political advertising.

To address some of these concerns, Facebook has announced that any ads running in the UK that make reference to political figures will have to publicly reveal the identity of the organization or individual that paid for them. The new rules about transparency will apply to both Facebook and Instagram.

Six years after their company was bought by Facebook, Instagram co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger have resigned. The pair say they are "planning on taking some time off to explore our curiosity and creativity again".

But while the departures have been presented as being amicable, sources suggest that the resignations came about because of Systrom and Krieger's unhappiness at the direction in which Facebook was taking the app.

While getting a verified account is something that's usually associated with Twitter, other social media services have similar schemes -- Facebook, for instance. The latest to join the verification party is Instagram which is now giving users the option of applying for a verified badge.

It is possible for anyone to request to have their account verified, but only a handful of applicants are likely to be accepted. Instagram has outlined details of how to apply, and the criteria that need to be met.

It might seem counter-intuitive -- or it might seem like a case of just saying what it thinks people want to hear -- but Facebook doesn't want you to use it as much as you do. That's not to say it wants you to disappear entirely, rather it just hopes that the time you spend on the social network is more "intentional, positive and inspiring" -- so you don't feel compelled to stay away and miss out on all those ads!

Today, the company launches a new activity dashboard for both Facebook and Instagram that lets you see how long you've on the social networks, set time limits, and restrict notifications. Facebook says that the new tools have been created in conjunction with mental health organizations and they come amid growing concerns about the problem of social networking addiction.

YouTube is a great video platform -- I have no complaints, really. With that said, I also enjoy watching content on Twitch. Ultimately, competition is a good thing, as it forces companies to innovate rather than stagnate.

Today, yet another video service debuts, and it is backed by a major player in the social network space -- Instagram. Just how major is it? Today, Instagram announces it has achieved 1 billion users! To celebrate, the Facebook-owned photo site is launching a true video platform that goes beyond the short throwaway videos the service currently offers. Called "IGTV," it is aiming to be a true YouTube competitor, allowing users to upload videos up to one hour in length. There is one big twist though -- the videos are vertical only...

A couple of weeks ago, Instagram said that it was working on a tool that would enable users to download everything from their accounts. Now the tool has been launched ahead of the roll out of GDPR in Europe.

There has been no fanfare for the data download tool, but it's available for everyone to use. It gives people the opportunity to download "photos, comments, profile information and more" which is ideal for anyone looking to either backup their data, or who is thinking about moving to a rival service.

The recent privacy scandal involving Cambridge Analytica and Facebook data has focused attention on personal data on social networks. With the impending arrival of GDPR in Europe and the requirement for data portability, Facebook-owned Instagram is planning to make it possible for users to download all of their data.

With Zuckerberg facing questions in Congress about Facebook's competition, the timing of this revelation is interesting. With the ability to easily download the content of their Instagram accounts, users will be able to more easily move to alternative services.

Following quite a vocal backlash from users, Instragram is making changes to its feed to move away slightly from the algorithm-driven, non-chronological form it takes at the moment.

Instagram -- like social media stable-mate Facebook -- has eschewed the chronological ordering of feeds, but now seems to have come to the realization that it is what people expect and prefer. The platform is also making changes to the automatic feed refresh function.

Snapchat and Instagram have both temporarily removed GIPHY integration from their products following the appearance of a racist GIF. A statement put out by Snapchat says: "We have removed GIPHY from our application until we can be assured that this will never happen again."

Instagram made a similar move, and it's not clear when GIPHY will rectify the issue. (Warning: a tweet containing the GIF in question is featured in the article below).