Several Instagram features are on the way to Threads, the text-based social media platform launched last year that’s aiming to unseat Twitter. The photo-sharing app’s branded content tools — which allow marketers to include “paid partnership” labels on posts — are reportedly set to be brought to Threads soon. Analysts say the move could help Threads compete more effectively with Twitter and other rivals.
Instagram is also improving its Brand Rights Protection feature, which allows content creators to report content that violates intellectual property rights, such as copyright infringement, trademark violations, impersonation, and more. The tool is available through Instagram’s Business Manager and can be used by users and businesses.
It’s also introducing new IP reporting APIs to make it easier for rights holders to submit reports through the platform. The company says businesses can use the tools to find, manage and remove any content that violates their intellectual property.
These latest updates follow a busy period for the company that’s been rocked by controversy over its handling of user data and other privacy issues. It’s also been battling criticism that it lets some people hide their posts from other users and that its content moderation is flawed in parts of the world with different cultural contexts. In addition, the company has faced concerns about how its news feeds are biased and can skew the political debate in some countries.
In November, Facebook-parent Meta introduced a series of tools to support small businesses during the holiday shopping season. It also rolled out social, political, and electoral ad transparency tools. The social media giant has been criticized for its lack of transparency over these types of ads in the past, which has led some people to boycott its products and services.
Amid the new initiatives, the company has been cutting jobs. Meta has already cut 11,000 positions in the past four months and is expected to announce more layoffs next week, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, citing sources familiar with the matter. The sources said that the job cuts are likely to focus on non-engineering roles and could total up to 13% of the company’s workforce.
The news of the changes to Instagram comes on the heels of Threads, a project that Meta’s parent company Facebook launched in October as a competitor to Elon Musk’s Twitter. Threads has racked up 30 million users in the first month of its launch and is expected to hit 100 million users within weeks, making it larger than Twitter. However, it needs to be clarified how many new users will stick with the platform after they’ve moved over from their existing Twitter or Instagram accounts. The company has slowed the service’s rollout in Europe, where it faces regulatory uncertainty over how to share user data across platforms. The 27-nation bloc has strict rules on data privacy that have prompted many large tech companies to limit how they can use people’s personal information.
