Barron’s Roundtable panelists discuss Meta’s latest advances in artificial intelligence.
Instagram will let you pay $3.99 per month to preview someone’s Story without appearing on the viewer list, and some users are raising privacy concerns.
But parent company Meta pushes back on claims that Instagram Plus reveals who viewed a story multiple times.
The feature shows how many times a story has been replayed in total, a Meta representative told Fox News Digital, but it doesn’t name the people behind those repeated views.
The subscription also adds a search bar to the list of existing viewers, making it easier to check if a specific person has seen a story. Another feature, Story Preview, allows paid users to take a quick look at someone else’s Story without appearing on that person’s viewer list.
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Meta says Instagram Plus doesn’t reveal who viewed your Stories repeatedly, fending off viral privacy concerns over its new $3.99 subscription. (Jens Büttner/photo alliance via Getty Images / Getty Images)
“Instagram Plus does not give subscribers more information about the viewing habits of others,” the Meta representative said. The company said it designed the paid features to give users more “connection, expression and control.”
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TikTok user @suhaadada said she tried Instagram Plus on a free trial and was “ready to never use Instagram again.” She argued that the rerun number could make a second point of view appear more significant than it actually is. Someone can just skip through a story too quickly and go back, she said.
Instagram Plus raises questions about privacy, but Meta says the new feature doesn’t reveal users’ viewing habits. (Lorenzo Di Cola/NurPhoto via Getty Images / Getty Images)
What disturbed her most, she said, was looking at the timestamps next to the names on her viewer list. She claimed that some names came back to the top with updated times, which she took as a sign that these people had reviewed her story. She said she found herself refreshing the list throughout the day and worried that other subscribers might draw conclusions about her own listening habits.
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Meta pushes back on claims that Instagram Plus lets users identify viewers who repeat the story, saying the $3.99 subscription only shows total replays, not those who rewatched. (Getty Images/Getty Images)
Other Reddit users have made similar statements regarding the timestamps being changed. These accounts have not been independently verified. Meta said the number of replays does not identify individual viewers, but does not directly address users’ claims that names are moving to the top of viewers’ lists with updated timestamps.
She also objected to story previewing because someone who posts a story may not see everyone who glanced at it. Meta confirmed that a subscriber can take a mini-preview without appearing on the viewer list, but said that people who post stories receive a notice explaining that previews may not appear there.
The subscription costs $3.99 per month in the United States, with prices varying by country, Meta said. It also allows users to extend a story by 24 hours, give a story a more visible location, and add posts to their profile or highlights without placing them in followers’ feeds.
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The TikTok user said she would not be renewing her subscription. Other critics have been equally blunt. One Reddit commenter called the features “stalker central,” while another wrote: “PLEASE paywall instagram so I finally delete the app.”
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