Clueless Instagram

Instagram has announced new ‘parental controls’ in what looks like yet another PR move.

• Instagram used to be a wildly popular photo-sharing social media network when it was bought by Facebook for $1 billion - which at the time seemed a huge amount, but in hindsight, is a steal.
• As the integrations between Instagram and Facebook became stronger and its original founders moved on, the app has become bloated beyond measure.
• A few months ago, a former data scientist at Facebook, Frances Haugen, revealed how Instagram was doing fairly little to address issues related teen mental health.
• Instagram was quick to respond that the whistleblower Haugen had taken things out of context and that it was doing more than any other social media company to address teen mental health issues.
• As Adam Mosseri gets ready to face the US Senate Committee to answer questions around Instagram’s effect on teenagers’ wellbeing, the company has announced new parental control features.
• Over the years, Instagram has faced stiff competition from the short-form video app, TikTok. It has copies TikTok’s short-form feature, just like it copied Stories from Snapchat in 2016.
• More recently, Mosseri also announced that Instagram was no longer merely a photo-sharing app. With the clusterfuck of features, Instagram has become a headless chicken.
• Read on why Instagram, which was once hailed better than even its parent Facebook, is facing the same dilemma that its parent did. And why new features are mere band-aid approaches.