You can’t say you weren’t warned.
If you’re in the know on all things social media these days, you’ve probably noticed how Instagram is doing its best to imitate Snapchat of late.
First came Instagram stories in August, followed by the launch of disappearing photos and videos in Instagram Direct this week. New features for Instagram, but nothing we hadn’t seen before.
Snapchat users will or at least should be aware of the fact that taking a screenshot of a snapchat will result in a notification being sent to the sender of the snap, but some Instagram users seemed to be perturbed by the notion of something similar happening following the launch of disappearing photos and videos.
According to Buzzfeed, for example, people were “freaking out”.
https://twitter.com/BaeFeeling/status/802063038560006144?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Instagram's now saying when we screenshot pictures, LOL please pic.twitter.com/ocRTDFxNQ8
— GCM (@georgiac_m) November 24, 2016
What some people didn’t grasp was that notifications will only be sent out for screenshots taken of disappearing photos and videos and not for merely taking a screenshot of an image that appears when you’re scrolling through images in your feed.
Instagram themselves made that much clear in a blog post announcing the launch of the new feature this week.
Swipe right into the camera to take a photo or video, then tap the arrow to send it privately. You can choose a group or create one in just a few taps — and you can also send to individual friends at the same time. Send anything you want, from inside jokes to your worst selfies. Unlike other messages in Direct, these photos and videos disappear from your friends’ inboxes after they have seen them. And you’ll see if they replayed it or took a screenshot.
Whether your account is set to public or private, you can only send disappearing photos and videos to people who follow you.
But hey, who reads the fine print, right?
