The $3.99-per-month subscription adds features like letting you keep a story up for 48 hours and the ability to customize your bio’s font. You can see the whole list of features on Instagram’s website.
The platform is testing a way to limit teens from seeing too many posts related to topics like nutrition, weightlifting, or anxiety management. It sounds similar to the “nudge” notifications Instagram launched in 2022, though this one will apply across home, explore, and reels feeds.
Meta also announced that its 13-plus setting is expanding globally to Instagram, Facebook, and Messenger.
The @obamawhitehouse account briefly showed images of Iranian propaganda, which have since been taken down, as spotted earlier by TMZ. The account belonging to the US Space Force Chief Master Sergeant was also hijacked.
The New York Times and Reuters report that a memo was sent to Meta employees on Monday reassigning 7,000 of them, and said that “As org leaders worked on the changes, many of them incorporated AI native design principles into their new org structures.”
The memo told employees to work remotely on Wednesday, when it will lay off about 10 percent of its workforce, roughly 8,000 people, with emails sent at 4AM local time.
Adobe’s updated Premiere video editing app, which launched on iOS last September, will finally arrive on Android “this summer.” It’ll include some Android-exclusive templates and effects designed for YouTube Shorts.
There are also Android-exclusive tools coming to Instagram’s Edits app, including AI upscaling and automatic audio track separation.
[Google Blog]
When Instagram’s iPad app launched last year, it would open up to a feed of Reels instead of the usual mix of posts you might be familiar with from the iOS app. Now, though, the iPad app has a more familiar home feed that works like the one in the iOS app, as reported by 9to5Mac.
Did those influencers in your Instagram feed go to Coachella, and do they even exist in real life? Creators can voluntarily add a new label to their account if they frequently post AI-generated or modified content starting on Monday.
This is in addition to Meta’s automatically applied “AI info” label for content on its platforms that it detects as being AI-modified.
Why nuclear options like age limits and repealing Section 230 won’t make social media safer.
After launching on Amazon Fire TV in December, Instagram for TV is expanding to Google TV devices in the US starting Tuesday, as Instagram head Adam Mosseri announced in a post on Threads. The feature lets users view reels on their TV, arranged into “channels” for different topics and themes.
[Threads]
It’s harder to clean up a mess you’re still actively making.
Charles Porch, who helped land Instagram’s biggest partnerships — including the launch of Beyoncé’s self-titled album on the social network — will now serve as OpenAI’s first VP of global creative partnerships.
“I’m going to be the person that’s talking to creative communities around the world to figure out how we build the best products to serve them,” Porch tells Vanity Fair.
Meta has bet big on AI everything, but also has Instagram boss Adam Mosseri out there warning creators about its impact. One commenter (and occasional Verge contributor!) sums up its position nicely:
David Imel:
Meta: “We’re going to shove our AI models into everything we make so you use them as much as possible”
Meta: “AI is making it hard to tell what’s real. This is going to be a challenge for us and for you! Be careful and vigilant and try not to die”
Get the day’s best comment and more in my free newsletter, The Verge Daily.
Following Australia’s social media ban for children under 16 taking effect last month, Meta says it has now removed almost 550,000 Instagram, Facebook, and Threads accounts that it believes were run by kids under that age threshold. Despite its compliance, Meta is still voicing opposition to the law.
Instagram head Adam Mosseri says, “People stopped sharing personal moments to feed years ago,” in a New Year’s Eve post about the future of the platform as generative AI produces more realistic-looking content.
A report from The Washington Post reveals Meta’s recent push to attract more teens to Instagram, which reportedly involved setting up a “living museum” inside its offices “to help employees internalize the lifestyles of their teenage targets:”
In at least one case it featured photos of top teen hangout places — a fast-food restaurant and a mall — and instructions on how to take wacky, teen-style selfies, according to photos of the exhibit.
[The Washington Post]
During Semafor’s Mixed Signals podcast, Instagram head Adam Mosseri said TikTok is “very much applying lessons they’ve learned in China to the rest of the world:”
Super apps, which are very popular in China, are not popular in the same way outside of China, and I think they’re turning into a Chinese super app — and that may or may not work outside of China.
