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Instagram's new scrolling feature briefly inspires absolute fury

Change is hard.

Heather Dockray

on December 27, 2018

I'm not sure why social platforms constantly feel the urge to evolve. I miss the Facebook that gave me real news stories instead of my uncle's views about the United States Postal Service, I long for the days of Friendster and MySpace.

Instagram is the latest platform to fall victim to the trend. The platform recently decided to test out a new way of scrolling through a feed -- tapping left-to-right, instead of up-and-down.

Predictably, the people of the internet are mad.

The feature, mimics the format of Instagram stories. Both features operate horizontally. Users were forced tap to see the next post.

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The transformation made folks largely, well, livid.

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UPDATE: Dec. 27, 2018, 12:22 p.m. EST Instagram released the following statement to Mashable:

“Due to a bug, some users saw a change to the way their feed appears today. We quickly fixed the issue and feed is back to normal. We apologize for any confusion.”

Instagram did not immediately respond to Mashable's request for comment, but Adam Mosseri, Head of Instagram tweeted saying the update was rolled out by accident.

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Now this is the kind of social media outrage that appeals to everyone, regardless of their political views. It pulls the people of the internet together. Onwards, my angry brethren!

Topics Instagram Social Media

Heather Dockray

Heather was the Web Trends reporter at Mashable NYC. Prior to joining Mashable, Heather wrote regularly for UPROXX and GOOD Magazine, was published in The Daily Dot and VICE, and had her work featured in Entertainment Weekly, Jezebel, Mic, and Gawker. She loves small terrible dogs and responsible driving. Follow her on Twitter @wear_a_helmet.