Instagram pulls the plug on Content Notes
You might not know what Instagram's Content Notes feature is, but your opportunity to familiarize yourself with it is gone.
A few months ago, Instagram introduced Content Notes. Apparently, not many people used it, so today, they're removing the feature.
"We're going to turn off Content Notes. If you don't know, Content Notes are the ability to add a note to a photo, a Reel, or a carousel on Instagram that your friends can see, but not everybody can see. And we launched it a few months ago in an effort to try to make Instagram more social and more fun," Instagram head Adam Mosseri said in a post on the social media platform. "But in practice, it just wasn't adopted by that many people."
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Often, the removal of a feature is met with disbelief and disappointment by those who use it. But not that many people used the feature anyway, so the responses are pretty supportive. Most of the comments under Mosseri's posts are the hand clap emoji or people saying things like, "I don’t think I even knew I had content notes." Of course, Mosseri has comments limited on the post, so this is likely swayed a bit.
But that messaging does seem to align with how people reacted when the feature was launched. On Reddit, one user said, "It’s really annoying. Is there a way to turn it off? There’s some much shit clogging up my home feed already, the last thing I want is to see is MORE posts from accounts I don’t even follow." Multiple people responded in agreement.
And "clogging up" the home feed seems to be behind at least part of the reasoning behind Mosseri's decision to remove the feature.
"And we know Instagram has become too complicated over the years, and one of the ways we want to address that is being willing to turn off features that aren't used by enough or that many people, and Content Notes is one of those features," Mosseri said in his Instagram Reel. "We're going to continue to explore more ways of making Instagram fun and social and bring friends out in the experience, but Content Notes isn't it. So more things to come in terms of new features, but also in terms of things that we turn off."
Topics Instagram
Christianna Silva is a senior culture reporter covering social platforms and the creator economy, with a focus on the intersection of social media, politics, and the economic systems that govern us. Since joining Mashable in 2021, they have reported extensively on meme creators, content moderation, and the nature of online creation under capitalism.
Before joining Mashable, they worked as an editor at NPR and MTV News, a reporter at Teen Vogue and VICE News, and as a stablehand at a mini-horse farm. You can follow her on Bluesky @christiannaj.bsky.social and Instagram @christianna_j.
