Instagram obviously didn’t have our best interest at heart when they rolled out their newest features this week. Taking a cue from other social media platforms (*cough* Facebook and Snapchat *cough*) the photo sharing app debuted live video streaming and disappearing photos. Similar to Snapchat, the disappearing photo feature allows for people to send a direct photo to someone else (or a group). Once the photo has been viewed by the receiver, it’s gone forever. What users didn’t know was that every time they took a screenshot of someone else’s disappearing photo, the sharer got a notification.
My inner (ok, not so inner) creepy side, who stalks people back to middle school regularly, and knows the names of a guy’s entire extended family before going on a date is screaming, and I’m not the only one, people are SHOOK.
Instagram telling people when u screenshot their picture now??? pic.twitter.com/vp5tHdtf5l
— benz ✨ (@rackstarminks) November 25, 2016
Instagram is now telling people when you screenshot their stuff. pic.twitter.com/iMq2YbfTTS
— Flirting (@BaeFeeling) November 25, 2016
instagram now notifies people when u screen shot their pictures.
me: pic.twitter.com/LqNwwm6UDo— nikki (@niicola_jade) November 24, 2016
Luckily, Instagram has limited its nosey notifications to only letting people know when you screenshot their photos that are meant to disappear (have I mentioned that this is awfully close to the premise of another photo sharing app?) The screenshots that you regularly take of the photos that your ex boyfriend and that bitch from work post publicly won’t be affected, so you can keep sending them to your BFF as conversation starters for shit-talking sessions.
For everyone who has fallen into this trap, and was caught trying to stealthily screenshot a photo, my heart goes out to you. Lets all pray that those poor, unfortunate people who got an awkward text saying “Ummm did you just screenshot the photo that I sent to you?” are smart enough to make up a convincing excuse (“My fingers slipped, haha total accident” doesn’t work).