Bullying on Instagram is no longer private. Instagram has launched a new premium feature, Instagram Plus, for $3.99 a month, marketing the subscription as a way to “help you express yourself, connect more deeply with friends, and personalize your experience in new ways.” The monthly subscription offers users exclusive benefits and features in the app. While the feature was designed to “broaden digital reach,” backlash has grown over claims that the new offerings exploit digital addiction and are a price paid to “drive people crazy.” Instagram Plus is an optional $3.99 per month Meta subscription that unlocks additional viewer insights. Instagram features include extending 24-hour stories to stay visible longer and placing them at the top of users’ feeds, along with “expressive reactions” so friends can show “extra support” in direct messages. The new Story Rewatch Count feature shows how many times your story was played, while the search view sheet lets you quickly check if a specific person viewed your post. Meanwhile, Story Preview allows users to take a look at someone’s story without appearing on their viewer list. There are also features that help hide actions from other users, including posting to your profile or highlights without appearing in your friends’ feeds. While secretly previewing stories allows users to view the content without the pressure to react, it prevents the creator from seeing who actually viewed it. Social media users consider the subscription a “new low” as it gives them the chance to go crazy for $3.99 a month. “If what you love is the ability to more comfortably control lovers or enemies (by which I mean torture yourself), then Instagram nailed it,” ranted one Reddit user, adding that the feature encourages obsessive tendencies. TikToker @suhaadada conducted what she called a “social experiment” to test Instagram Plus and concluded that it left her “ready to never use Instagram again.” He particularly criticized the Story Rewatch information, which displays a rewatch glyph next to the viewer count when someone watches a story multiple times. “It could be someone who takes a quick look and sees something that interests them enough to go back,” he explained. Instagram Plus is said to be “simply an optional upgrade for people who want more control.” Instagram “Tries to manipulate you into thinking that a viewer’s repeat viewing means more than it really does.” The feature also provides timestamps of when someone first viewed a story, and updates if they view it again. Critics argue that these updates allow companies to make profits at the expense of users’ mental health. “At the expense of your own mental health, when you start to wonder why someone is jumping to the top of your viewing list so much,” the TikToker said, noting that non-subscribers won’t know who has Instagram Plus or that their viewing habits are being tracked, meaning subscribers are paying for access to user behavior that “should be kept private.” “If you have Instagram plus, stay away from me,” one commenter joked. Others warn that paid features are just the beginning, and theorize that Meta will eventually charge users for general access to its platforms. “Meta is slowly killing what used to be good,” one user lamented.
