News & Reviews:   Instagram announce

Instagram is rolling out enhanced safety features for teens in Malaysia, introducing an updated 13+ content rating system alongside a new Limited Content setting aimed at providing stronger parental controls.

Instagram Plus is a paid subscription tier, adding monetisation features beyond its current free experience. The discovery was shared by Matt Navarra, who highlighted details found within the app’s code, pointing to early-stage testing of premium tools. First started as a new leak, it is now confirmed that the company is officially testing the Plus out.

Instagram is preparing to remove end-to-end encryption (E2EE) from its direct messaging system, marking a notable shift in how private conversations are handled on the platform. The change will take effect on 8 May 2026, after which encrypted chats will no longer be supported inside Instagram. While it may sound counterintuitive, Meta says the feature was not widely used, which played a major role in the decision to discontinue it.

Finally, Instagram will allow users to download Reels in the app. The announcement was made by Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri on his Instagram broadcast channel. However, this feature is only available in the US for now.

Apparently, Instagram servers were down when we were asleep last night. According to sources, it happened for a few hours on Sunday evening (US time) when the feed was frozen still and couldn't refresh. Even the website version was blank.

Last night at around 9 PM, Instagram users experienced a real-life Halloween episode of not being able to access their accounts. Not only that, but it also affected a drop in followers (especially for influencers, hearsay) as their accounts got suspended accidentally.

Today, Meta announced that Instagram will have a new Sensitive Content Control function. As most of you should know, there are some "not-safe-for-work" images floating around on Instagram. With this, Sensitive Content Control has only two options for teens: “Standard” and “Less.”

Map navigation in Instagram? How does that work? Well, without beating the bush too much, the company tweeted a simple tweet announcing finding popular locations around you. On top of that, you can also filter categories by yourself in the app within.

With waves of news about Amber Heard losing the court case against Johnny Depp, there is also other news regarding AMBER. And no, it's not the actress again but rather AMBER Alerts launching on Instagram. This new function will help people to see and share notices of missing children in their area.

These days, companies are really trying to take advantage of having non-fungible tokens (NFTs) in whichever platform they are having. Instagram is the latest player to join the bandwagon and it has begun testing NFTs.