Tati Bruening's "Make Instagram Instagram again" petition (more than 321 million followers) has been circulating on the social media platform for four days. The photographer calls for a return to the photo focus: "Stop wanting to be TikTok, I just want to see cute photos of my friends," she writes in her appeal.
In addition to the current 184,374 signatories (as of Wednesday afternoon), top stars of the portal such as Kylie Jenner (24, more than 361 million followers) and half-sister Kim Kardashian (more than 326 million followers) have now jumped on the bandwagon. They shared the petition on their channels.
And now Instagram boss Adam Mosseri (39) is even responding personally to the criticism.
On Tuesday, Mosseri posted a video on the short message service Twitter to address the concerns and criticism of the changed strategy. "We will continue to support photos. It's part of our heritage," he says in the clip. In doing so, he is directly addressing concerns that the social media platform is moving away from its roots.
"However, I honestly have to say that I believe that Instagram will become more and more of a video portal over time. We see that even if we don't change anything," he adds. "We will also need to evolve because the world is changing rapidly and we need to change with it," Mosseri continued.
In further tweets, Mosseri also addresses the criticism that Instagram no longer prioritizes content from friends in users' personal feeds. "One thing I hear a lot is people wanting to see more content from friends in Feed. I'd love to see more of this in Feed, but all the growth in friend photos and videos has been in Stories and held in DMs."
And further: "We will continue to show photos and videos of friends at the top of the feed whenever we can, but the best way to keep up with friends seems to be the other features of Instagram."
His tip: "If you want to make sure you don't miss anything from a friend or another account, add this account to your favorites and we will then display these posts at the top of the feed."
Adam Mosseri's unusually quick response to the growing criticism could be due to the involvement of the Jenner-Kardashian clan. Because the fate that befell Snap Inc. in 2018 should not have escaped him either.
When Jenner tweeted that she was no longer using Snapchat, the stock plummeted 6.1 percent and lost a whopping $1.3 billion in market value in one day.
