According to a report in Thursday’s Platformer tech newsletter, Instagram will pause features that users have been fighting and complaining about making the social network too much like TikTok.
Celebrity sisters Kim Kardashian and Kylie Jenner were among the most vocal users to post messages on social media this week calling on the company to “make Instagram Instagram again” and stop trying to be like TikTok.
The slogan sprang from a change.org petition that had more than 229,000 signatures as of late Thursday.
“Let’s go back to our roots with Instagram and remember that the intention behind Instagram was to share photos, for goodness sake,” the petition reads.
Instagram boss Adam Mosseri responded to the controversy with a video on Twitter earlier this week, saying the features were in the works and being tested with a small number of users.
Changes included playing short-form videos, viewing in full-screen like TikTok, and recommending posts from strangers.
“I’m glad we took a chance,” Mosseri was quoted as saying in an interview with Platformer’s Casey Newton on Thursday.
“But we definitely have to take a big step back and regroup.”
“If we don’t fail every once in a while, we’re not thinking big enough or bold enough,” Mosseri said.
Mosseri argued that the move to more video would happen even if the service didn’t change, as users increasingly share and seek video snippets.
“If you look at what people are sharing on Instagram, that’s shifting more and more to video over time,” Mosseri said.
“We’re going to have to build on that shift.”
Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg supported the position during an earnings call on Wednesday, saying people are increasingly watching videos online.
Both Meta and Google are among the companies facing increasing competition from TikTok for people’s attention and have launched their own versions of short video sharing.
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