If you can believe it, Instagram is testing a new feature that mimics other social networks. TechCrunch reports Instagram confirmed tests of “reposts” to bring someone else’s content onto your own timeline. It’s similar to Twitter’s retweets or the kind of reshares that are common on Tumblr and Facebook and are also in testing on TikTok.
TechCrunch writes the “repost” feature was spotted by Matt Navarra, a social media consultant who posted images in a Twitter thread on Wednesday. However, Alessandro Paluzzi noticed it in development back in May, showing Instagram has been working on it for a while.
Sharing someone else’s post for your own followers to see isn’t completely new for Instagram users. Users have been able to share public posts for their followers but only to their Instagram Story or through direct messages. Now, the test would let users share a post on their feeds without having to screenshot it and repost it or go through another source.
Aside from reposts within your own feed, I’ve noticed on my iPhone that Instagram has modified its cross-platform sharing options. Now it’s pushing the buttons to share to Snapchat, Messenger, or WhatsApp ahead of direct-to-DM sharing, which is, again, similar to TikTok’s approach.
Instagram rolled back a test shifting the app toward an AI-powered feed of full-screen pictures and video — part of its apparent slow metamorphosis into TikTok — but isn’t giving up on the effort. Another recent test gives Instagram users the ability to select and mark multiple posts as “not interested” to train the suggestion algorithm toward their preferences.
“We’re exploring the ability to reshare posts in Feed — similar to how you can reshare in Stories — so people can share what resonates with them, and so original creators are credited for their work,” Seine Kim, a spokesperson from Meta told The Verge in an email statement. “We plan to test this soon with a small number of people,” she said, but noted that the feature isn’t publicly available to test yet.
Update September 9th, 8:22 PM ET: Updated with statement from Meta