Instagram

The Instagram app has its own built-in camera, so users can take photos and videos for Stories without needing another app. While users can save this content to their photo library, some people have noticed that the Save button on the Instagram camera has now disappeared – but luckily there’s already a fix available.

Lawyers representing Apple said the company may not be able to trust Meta, after the social network company leaked internal data shared with the company in confidence.

Amusingly, Meta didn’t share the data deliberately, but instead used a method of redacting a PDF which is well-known for being trivial to undo …

Instagram is working on an iPad app, according to a new report from The Information. Yes, you read that right: after 15 years, Instagram is finally making a dedicated app for iPad.

Meta on Thursday announced a new feature coming to Instagram users. More specifically, this new feature should benefit those who like to watch Reels, Instagram’s short video platform that competes with TikTok. With the update, users can fast-forward Reels videos.

Instagram last month announced Edits, a new video editor app for mobile platforms that aims to compete with CapCut (owned by ByteDance, which is behind TikTok). Although Meta promised to launch the new app on March 13, it now appears that it will be released a bit later than expected.

Meta community notes are expected to launch within the next couple of months, after the social network announced it would be ending its own fact-checking program because facts are so 2015. You can now apply to be a contributor to these, signing up on one of Facebook, Instagram, and Threads.

Meantime, X owner Elon Musk appears to be threatening the impartiality of his platform’s community notes, announcing plans to “fix” the feature …

In a complete coincidence of timing, Instagram just announced two new features launching for Reels in the US starting today. Here are the details.

Updated with love annually since 2018

Instagram is a 203-year-old iPhone app — give or take a few decades. It launched the same year as the iPad. As another year goes by, the refusal to make a proper iPad app mystifies a new generation of historians and iPad users.

As we reported in August, Meta has confirmed that it will discontinue Spark, Instagram’s AR filters, in January 2025. At the time, the company didn’t give many details except to say that it would prioritize its efforts on other products. Now we know what’s coming next: realistic AI-based filters.

AI video editing based on text prompts is coming to Instagram next year, with the company’s head showing off the ability to do things like change your clothing and video background, as well as some funkier stuff like adding animated characters.

The company had earlier shown a demo video (below) of completely AI-generated video, stating that it was just a research project, but it seems the first practical application of the tech is arriving sooner than expected …

As we approach the end of the year, Instagram is rolling out a new year-in-review feature. This year, you’ll be able to create a collage for your Instagram Story showing off your favorite moments of the year.

Deep fakes are arguably the most dangerous aspect of AI. It’s now relatively trivial to create fake photos, audio, and even video. See below for deep fakes of Morgan Freeman and Tom Cruise, for example.

But while social media has so far been used as a mechanism for distributing deep fakes, Instagram head Adam Mosseri thinks it can actually play a key role in debunking them …

Meta is currently experiencing a major outage across all its platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Messenger, and WhatsApp. As noted by Downdetector.com, there has been a sharp increase in reported outages from users of these various services. Here’s what we know so far.

Update 5 p.m. Eastern: Over four hours into the outage, Meta has restored service for some users but many continue to experience issues and there has been no new update yet.

Meta is introducing a new way for creators to test content performance before sharing with followers. The new Instagram feature called trial reels allows creators to share videos with non-followers as a way to gauge reactions. This will allow creators to push the most engaging videos to their actively following audience.

A law enforcement agency has said that both Instagram and TikTok are increasingly being used to recruit money mules, who are either knowingly or unknowingly helping criminal gangs to launder money.

Those caught face prison sentences of up to 14 years, and are also likely to be banned from holding or opening a bank account …

Note: This report contains links to reports about teenage suicides

Australia has followed France in imposing a social media ban for kids, and other countries are expected to follow. The French government is now pushing for an EU-wide ban.

Social media platforms are of course pushing back as they face losing a demographic seen as key to their future, and questions are being raised about how the ban will be enforced …

Update: Australia has now voted to ban social media use by children under the age of 16. In a 9to5Mac reader poll on the issue, the vast majority of you thought the US should do the same – see the end of the piece.

The impact of social media use by kids is perhaps one of the hottest topics in tech. There’s significant evidence that social media apps like Instagram can be harmful to the mental health of children, while others argue that it can also enable social connection.

Apple’s Find My Friends (which is now integrated into the Find My app) lets you share your location in real time with other people. Soon, Instagram users will have access to a similar feature to share their location with friends and family right from the social network.

One of the biggest problems with social media is that our feeds are full of things the algorithms think we want to see, rather than what we actually want to see.

If your Instagram recommendations seem increasingly removed from your interests, Meta is now offering you the chance to start again from scratch …