Instagram will soon make a big step back on a feature that is far from unanimous. Present on all social networks to this day, it caused a stir when it appeared several years ago, to the point of now becoming part of our daily lives.
There have been several pivotal moments in the history of social media that have profoundly transformed our use of these platforms — not to mention the very impact they have had on our society. But one, in particular, certainly stuck in the memory of everyone who was already using Facebook in the early 2010s: the appearance of the “Seen” badge in conversations.
Despite the public outcry, coming from users anxious at the idea of no longer being able to shamelessly ignore their messages, the practice quickly spread across all social networks, allowing everyone to know when their correspondent to throw away an eye on the conversation — and decided whether to respond to it or not. It was therefore quite natural that Instagram decided to integrate the functionality into its messaging when it landed in the application.
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But today it seems that the social network has realized its mistake. In a joint statement, Mark Zuckerberg, boss of Meta, and Adam Mosseri, boss of Instagram, announced that users will soon have more power over this unloved feature. “We heard your feedback and started testing a new feature that lets you turn off read receipts in your messages. »
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It will soon be possible to decide which users will be able to see when their messages have been read. Those who are not granted this right will therefore no longer be informed of your indiscretions. The feature is currently being tested with a small audience and will hopefully be rolled out to the general public soon. For the moment, the two bosses have not yet announced the possibility of deactivating their online status for certain users.