It may finally be September, but it’s never too early to start celebrating Halloween. Instagram is starting the celebration extra early this year by rumors of their new update starting to emerge-and it’s scarier than what we’d ever imagine.
According to numerous sources, Instagram’s newest update will include a feature that shows you every single person who has ever screenshotted one of your photos from 2016 until now. Of course, these could include your Instagram followers or users who don’t follow you just as well.
I know, I’m equally as terrified.
Screenshotting Instagram pictures while creeping someone’s account is an essential activity in our lives. Good gossip? Screenshot. Shocking post? Screenshot. New room inspiration? Screenshot. Girl you hate with someone who doesn’t deserve her? Screenshot. New man? Screenshot. (Followed by sending to the group chat, obviously).
But is this rumor true?
Sadly we still have yet to hear any verification from Instagram themselves, but a lot of blogs online are doing some digging. In fact, a lot of videos are now circulating online debunking the speculation and are proving it may just be a hoax or they’re in the testing stages of this nightmare.
As of right now, the only time someone receives a screenshot notification is when someone screenshots a direct message. We’ve known this for a while that Instagram notifies the owner when someone took a screenshot of a disappearing photo or video is shared via DM-just like Snapchat. That is nothing new.
Back in 2018 there was speculation of Instagram testing this rumored feature and they faced a lot of backlash over those who were caught receiving notifications of others screenshotting their photos. Luckily, it didn’t make it past the testing phase. Otherwise there has been no mention of this nightmare becoming a reality coming directly from Instagram themselves.
But thanks to a few accounts on Twitter stirring up the pot, we now have this to worry about all over again.
In all seriousness, could you imagine if this actually happened? How would we even recover from that as women? If we got confronted what would we say, “I liked your shoes and wanted inspiration?”, “I liked the comments”, “I wanted to roast you on my group chat” or “My mom wanted to see but I didn’t want her to zoom and double tap?” It doesn’t work like that!
My guess based on what I’ve researched online and the fact that Instagram has not responded to questions, I strongly believe this is false. However, it wouldn’t be the first time they’ve surprised us with new features nobody asked for (like adding random posts to our timeline from people we don’t follow).
And 2016 is a long time ago, as if we could remember what we were doing back then? Meanwhile, imagine the joy of finding out who screenshotted your pictures… I’d be curious to see if any of my crushes did that to one of mine, maybe even flattered!
So until we get our answers, let’s continue to die of embarrassment internally (and in our group chats) by how mortified we are about to become at the thought of people knowing we screenshotted their pictures.
Hang in there guys, we’re all in this together.
Photo by 🇨🇭 Claudio Schwarz | @purzlbaum on Unsplash
