Instagram update: New swipe-left scrolling completely changes how users go through through feed

New feature has been greeted with widespread outrage

Andrew Griffin
Thursday 27 December 2018 19:10 GMT
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Instagram swipe sideways

Instagram has added a huge new change to the way users scroll through their feed: going side-to-side rather than up and down.

Users across the world are reporting the app has just switched, and that they now click through posts in the same way they do stories, rather than the traditional up-and-down movement.

The feature appears to be an attempt to mimic the huge success of Instagram's stories feature, which people do tap through by going sideways. Stories has become perhaps the fastest-growing media format ever, and is itself now twice as big as rival Snapchat.

Update: Feature was rolled out by mistake, Instagram boss claims

A message informing users of the change is appearing in the app.

"Introducing a new way to move through posts," the pop-up reads, alongside a message encouraging people to try it out. "Tap through posts, just like you tap through stories."

The update appears to have rolled out for a huge number of Instagram users at once, on Thursday afternoon UK time. Instagram often staggers such updates gradually.

It has been greeted with near-unanimous outrage by the millions of users who have presumably just received it.

"What the hell is this @instagram?!" wrote on. "Give me back my timeline. This update SUCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

There appears to be no way of reversing the change, once it has arrived.

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