Sure, you can share your friends’ posts on your Facebook page, or retweet a hot take to your followers on Twitter, but Instagram has been relatively conservative when it comes to letting users publicly redistribute posts on the social network. According to a report from TechCrunch, however, Instagram is testing a feature that makes it easier to share content to your own Stories feed – or talk trash about your haters.
Photo: Carl Court (Getty)
The new feature lets users embed public Instagram photos inside the Stories section of the app. A Facebook spokesperson told Gizmodo the company is testing the feature with a “small percentage” of users. According to TechCrunch, you’ll be able to adjust the size and positioning of the shared post, as well as take advantage of Instagram’s own creative tools so you can add your own two cents, because everyone loves commenting on everything.
Screenshot: TechCrunch
Reposting – or “Regramming” – on Instagram via third-party services isn’t new, and there are obvious benefits to being able to re-share posts from yourself or others in the context of your more ephemeral Story content. But if you’re worried you’ll have your own posts used against you when someone decides to get on your bad side, the problem should be easily remedied. You’ll be able to disable the feature on your own posts in the app’s settings, according to TechCrunch.
In the meantime, I think I’ll pass on using the new re-sharing option. I’m already averse to watching Instagram Stories, mostly because the slice of life that’s offered for viewing there is pretty bland (sorry, friends). With Instagram adding the option to – let’s be real – go to town on whatever post you’re sharing, I can only imagine its utility to me will degrade even further. Besides, I already have a place I can go to look at Instagram posts: The Instagram feed, literally pixels below the Stories section.