Facebook’s Instagram platform dominated social media discussions following an unpopular update, Thursday, which led to the rise of Twitter trends such as “RIP Instagram.”
On Thursday morning, eight separate Instagram-related trends dominated the top fourteen positions on Twitter’s U.S. trending chart:
- 1 – #instagramupdate
- 2 – “New Instagram”
- 4 – “The Instagram”
- 8 – “Wtf Instagram”
- 10 – “Dear Instagram”
- 11 – “instagram app”
- 12 – “Well Instagram”
- 13 – “RIP Instagram”
The trends surfaced following heavy criticism of Instagram’s latest update, which according to the Independent, “completely changes” the platform.
The update forced users to scroll through the feed horizontally instead of vertically, like swiping on dating app Tinder, and was reportedly so unpopular that it “was live for about an hour before it was rolled back.”
In a Twitter post, Facebook’s Head of Instagram Adam Mosseri apologized and explained the update was supposed to be a small-scale test.
“Sorry about that, this was supposed to be a very small test but we went broader than we anticipated,” he proclaimed. “Should already be rolled back. If you’re still seeing it you can simply restart your app and you should be good to go.”
The unpopular update bore a resemblance to Snapchat’s controversial update earlier this year, which prompted outrage and forced executives to admit that it had been a costly mistake.
“We rushed our redesign, solving one problem but creating many others,” declared Snap CEO Evan Spiegel. “The biggest mistake we made with our redesign was compromising our core product value of being the fastest way to communicate. Our redesigned algorithmic Friend Feed made it harder to find the right people to talk to, and moving too quickly meant that we didn’t have time to optimize the Friend Feed for fast performance. We slowed down our product and eroded our core product value.”
As previously reported by Breitbart News reporter Tom Ciccotta, the Snapchat update came under fire from some of the platform’s biggest influencers, including Kylie Jenner.
“Snapchat’s market value dropped 6.1 percent in the immediate aftermath of an explosive Kylie Jenner tweet that ripped the platform’s latest update,” Ciccotta reported in February.
Charlie Nash is a reporter for Breitbart Tech. You can follow him on Twitter @MrNashington, or like his page at Facebook.
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