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Showing posts from June, 2022

Instagram says it’s working to fix repeating stories bug

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They play over and over and over and over. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Instagram Stories seem to be misbehaving for some users, making it so that they have to re-view all of someone’s stories before they’re able to see new ones. The issue has affected several Verge staff members since yesterday, and some Reddit users have reported the same thing is happening to them. Meta spokesperson Christine Pai told The Verge in an email that the company is “aware that some people are having trouble accessing Instagram Stories.” Pai said Instagram is “working to get things back to normal as quickly as possible,” and apologizes for the inconvenience. The root issue seems to be that Instagram doesn’t remember where you left off when viewing someone’s stories. For example, if one of my friends has posted five stories, and I look at four of them before swiping away, the next time I tap on their icon, I should see their fifth story. Instead, Instagram is curr

Instagram’s sensitive content filters are changing

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Image: Instagram Instagram’s Sensitive Content Control feature, which puts an adjustable filter on content recommended by the platform, now applies to more areas on Instagram. In a post on its blog , Instagram says it’s expanding the setting’s impact beyond the Explore page to include anywhere it makes recommendations, including in your feed, search, hashtag pages, Reels, and Accounts You Might Follow. While you could always choose from three toggles that vary in how much sensitive content Instagram filters out, Instagram is renaming those existing options. Instead of “Allow,” “Limit,” and “Limit Even More,” Instagram’s now calling the tiers “More,” “Standard,” and “Less.” Instagram will set accounts on Standard by default, which will allow you to see “some sensitive content” across the platform. Choosing “More” will show you the most sensitive content while “Less” is the most limiting option of the three. Instagram’s Sensitive Content Control toggle faced pu

Instagram puts Amber Alerts in your feed to help find abducted children

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Amber Alerts are an important tool in helping locate abducted children. They’re authorized by law enforcement and broadcast via TVs, text messages, and other means. Now, Instagram will also push Amber Alerts into users’ feeds with the feature rolling out in the US today and set to be available in 25 total countries “in the next couple of weeks.” It shows how apps like Instagram have become basic communication infrastructure in the modern world. Adding Amber Alerts to Instagram makes sense for a few reasons. First, younger generations may well ignore text messages but scroll through Instagram with some regularity. Second, while text alerts require people to click a link to get more information and photos of the missing child, Instagram’s alerts will include this info directly. It doesn’t seem the alerts will be issued as notifications — they’ll just appear in users’ regular feeds. Amber Alerts are issued relatively rarely Facebook previously added Amber Alerts into th