Instagram reportedly testing voice message replies to Stories

Source: Alessandro Paluzzi

Instagram might be trying out a new way to reply to Stories. Developer Alessandro Paluzzi discovered a new feature that could let users send voice messages as replies to Stories. Paluzzi shared a screenshot of what the interface looks like. As with any potential feature tests, there's no guarantee these will be made public. But as Engadget pointed out, this seems to clash with the objective they set of decluttering people's inboxes through private Story likes.

Instagram's reverse-chronological feed is making a comeback with a few caveats

Source: Instagram

If you've been asking for Instagram to give back the reverse-chronological feed, the Meta-owned company is throwing you a bone. It announced on Tuesday that it will begin rolling out two new feed options: Favourites and Following. But as Mashable reported, there is a catch to this feature.

The former shows you a curated list of posts from people or accounts you want to hear from, while the Following shows you the latest posts of the accounts you follow. But even if you prefer to use these, every time you open the app, it will still default to the algorithmic Home feed. There's no way to set the default you want. 

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Instagram finally allows Live creators to appoint moderators

Source: Instagram

It seems pretty shocking that we're only now getting moderator support in Instagram's Live function. The social media site announced that its Live creators can now assign moderators for their streams. These moderators can report comments, remove viewers from the Live, or turn off comments for a specific viewer.

If you live stream on Instagram, you can assign a moderator by tapping on the three dots in the comment bar during a Live. You can then choose a moderator from a list of suggested accounts or use the search bar to look for a specific account.

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Instagram wants you to spend more time on the app, increases minimum time for Daily Limit notifications

Photo by Prateek Katyal on Unsplash

Instagram has quietly updated the lowest time limit for its Daily Limit feature. From 10 minutes, the minimum time is now set at 30 minutes. Daily Limit notifications send reminders that you've spent too much time on the app. 

The increase seems to come when parent company Meta reported slowing growth. And that isn't great for its platform. So, it looks like a wise decision for the company to do it for its bottom line. But if you've been trying to curb your Instagram use, you might have to resort to other apps or services that can cut you off from it.

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