Did you know Instagram had a feature that let you see what the people you followed were doing? No? Well, it’s going away pretty soon, so spy while you can.
For reasons that don’t quite make sense, Instagram allowed you to see what people you followed liked and who they followed alongside your own real notifications. While most people didn’t actually use this feature, nosy nellies and busybodies would have found a treasure trove of gossip just from seeing who was liking whose husband’s photo, and so on.
According to BuzzFeed, Instagram chose to make the move to pull this feature for simplicity reasons. Again, it doesn’t quite make sense why the firm would have chosen to broadcast user activity in this way. Sure, perhaps you’d be inspired to like some photos by seeing what your friends were liking, but there was no way to opt-out of this or preserve your privacy other than by carefully curating who followed you.
The page will gradually vanish from users apps in the coming week as Instagram flips whatever switches (server-side/app update etc.) it needs to kill it.
Via: BuzzFeed News