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Instagram is asking users to create a second account in a marked return to privacy online.
Photo and video sharing app Instagram by Meta Platforms (FB) – Get Meta Platforms Inc. Class A Report is encouraging users to create a new second account to stay in touch with a smaller group of friends.
Users can access the prompt that allows them to create a second account by pressing the profile icon for a few seconds. Basically, the app wants people to have one account that’s for a broader audience and one that’s for a much tighter circle (where more personal or sensitive information might be shared).
The Wall Street Journal first reported this story.
Instagram Responds to Users
Instagram did not share details of when the company rolled out this new feature or how many people have created a second account using it, The Journal reported.
Experts cited by The Journal said the changes are a response to user feedback as interactions on social platforms become more private in nature with a limited group of trusted friends.
The move comes seven months after the social media platform gave its users a choice to hide the number of likes their posts receive online.
Ongoing Instagram Controversies
Instagram has recently been plagued with controversy after internal documents revealed the social media company knew about negative effects of its app.
“Thirty-two percent of teen girls said that when they felt bad about their bodies, Instagram made them feel worse,” a separate Wall Street Journal investigation revealed in September.
In May this year, after two years of testing, Instagram gave users the ability to hide the like count on all posts in a bid to make the service less competitive, particularly for young people.
In November 2018, Instagram launched a feature called Close Friends to allow users to share Instagram stories stories with a more intimate circle of friends.
In October, Facebook announced a fundamental change to its identity as it rebranded its name to Meta and hoped to be seen as a metaverse company, at its virtual developer conference, Facebook Connect.
The metaverse is a $10 billion project to transition Facebook from its much-criticized social network and related family of apps and into what founder and Zuckerberg has called an “embodied Internet.”
Shares of Meta at last check fell 2.90% to $301.25
