Instagram will backtrack on several recent updates after thousands of users, including Kim Kardashian and Kylie Jenner, criticised the photo-sharing app for trying to be too much like TikTok.
On Thursday, Instagram said it would temporarily decrease the number of suggested posts users saw in their feeds from accounts they don’t follow, a feature it has been testing, which has resulted in friction with the creators on the platform. The update meant that users were being offered new accounts over seeing content from the ones they already follow.
It also said it would roll back its testing of a new feed that showed photo and video posts as full screen, as opposed to its typical way of showing posts as a portion of the screen in a scrolling format.
Both updates make the platform more akin to the way TikTok works. The highly popular Chinese-owned video app shows its content in full-screen, most of which is recommended to users by its algorithm.
“We recognise that changes to the app can be an adjustment, and while we believe that Instagram needs to evolve as the world changes, we want to take the time to make sure we get this right,” Meta, Instagram’s parent company, said in a statement.
The announcement comes after a post went viral, saying: “Make Instagram Instagram again. Stop trying to be TikTok. I just want to see cute photos of my friends. Sincerely, everyone.”
It was this post that several high-profile content creators and celebrities shared.
Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, said the test version of the revamped app would be phased out over the coming weeks.
"I'm glad we took a risk — if we're not failing every once in a while, we're not thinking big enough or bold enough," he told The Verge. "But we definitely need to take a big step back and regroup. We've learned a lot, then we come back with some sort of new idea or iteration. So we're going to work through that."
Earlier in the week, Mosseri challenged users’ calls that they wanted to see more content from their friends in their Instagram feeds.
“One thing I hear a lot is people asking to see more friend content in Feed. I'd love for there to be more friend content in feed, but all the growth in photos and videos from friends has been in stories and in DMs,” he said in a tweet.
“We will continue to show photos and videos from friends towards the top of Feed whenever we can, but the best way to keep up with friends seems to be with the other parts of Instagram.”
Meta’s chief executive Mark Zuckerberg has spoken publicly about how TikTok’s popularity has challenged his platforms Facebook and Instagram for people’s attention. He said that Reels and video content was the main thing driving engagement and growth on the platform.
What is graphene?
Graphene is a single layer of carbon atoms arranged like honeycomb.
It was discovered in 2004, when Russian-born Manchester scientists Andrei Geim and Kostya Novoselov were "playing about" with sticky tape and graphite - the material used as "lead" in pencils.
Placing the tape on the graphite and peeling it, they managed to rip off thin flakes of carbon. In the beginning they got flakes consisting of many layers of graphene. But as they repeated the process many times, the flakes got thinner.
By separating the graphite fragments repeatedly, they managed to create flakes that were just one atom thick. Their experiment had led to graphene being isolated for the very first time.
At the time, many believed it was impossible for such thin crystalline materials to be stable. But examined under a microscope, the material remained stable, and when tested was found to have incredible properties.
It is many times times stronger than steel, yet incredibly lightweight and flexible. It is electrically and thermally conductive but also transparent. The world's first 2D material, it is one million times thinner than the diameter of a single human hair.
But the 'sticky tape' method would not work on an industrial scale. Since then, scientists have been working on manufacturing graphene, to make use of its incredible properties.
In 2010, Geim and Novoselov were awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics. Their discovery meant physicists could study a new class of two-dimensional materials with unique properties.
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Key changes
Commission caps
For life insurance products with a savings component, Peter Hodgins of Clyde & Co said different caps apply to the saving and protection elements:
• For the saving component, a cap of 4.5 per cent of the annualised premium per year (which may not exceed 90 per cent of the annualised premium over the policy term).
• On the protection component, there is a cap of 10 per cent of the annualised premium per year (which may not exceed 160 per cent of the annualised premium over the policy term).
• Indemnity commission, the amount of commission that can be advanced to a product salesperson, can be 50 per cent of the annualised premium for the first year or 50 per cent of the total commissions on the policy calculated.
• The remaining commission after deduction of the indemnity commission is paid equally over the premium payment term.
• For pure protection products, which only offer a life insurance component, the maximum commission will be 10 per cent of the annualised premium multiplied by the length of the policy in years.
Disclosure
Customers must now be provided with a full illustration of the product they are buying to ensure they understand the potential returns on savings products as well as the effects of any charges. There is also a “free-look” period of 30 days, where insurers must provide a full refund if the buyer wishes to cancel the policy.
“The illustration should provide for at least two scenarios to illustrate the performance of the product,” said Mr Hodgins. “All illustrations are required to be signed by the customer.”
Another illustration must outline surrender charges to ensure they understand the costs of exiting a fixed-term product early.
Illustrations must also be kept updatedand insurers must provide information on the top five investment funds available annually, including at least five years' performance data.
“This may be segregated based on the risk appetite of the customer (in which case, the top five funds for each segment must be provided),” said Mr Hodgins.
Product providers must also disclose the ratio of protection benefit to savings benefits. If a protection benefit ratio is less than 10 per cent "the product must carry a warning stating that it has limited or no protection benefit" Mr Hodgins added.
