Instagram adds native profile support for stalkers to see who follows back
Sep 20, 2017
John Aldred
John Aldred is a photographer with over 25 years of experience in the portrait and commercial worlds. He is based in Scotland and has been an early adopter – and occasional beta tester – of almost every digital imaging technology in that time. As well as his creative visual work, John uses 3D printing, electronics and programming to create his own photography and filmmaking tools and consults for a number of brands across the industry.
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One of the biggest complaints about Instagram has always been that you can’t easily see who follows you back. Or at least, it’s one of the oldest complaints, if not the current big one. We’ve had to rely on a series of third party apps and websites to help figure out who’s following us back.
Personally, I don’t follow people just to get people to follow me back, but I am sometimes curious about which of them are. It’s a nice little ego boost when somebody you respect and admire follows your work. Now, Instagram are finally giving us the ability to see who follows us back.
So far, the new “Follows you” feature has only been rolled out for Android users. No doubt it will be coming soon to iOS. Essentially, when you go to a user’s profile, if you look underneath their bio, it now says “Follows you”, if they do, indeed, follow you.
Instagram is testing "Follows You" feature on user profiles https://t.co/4AIDIHT3Zv pic.twitter.com/LBEoGJwUn1
— Matt Navarra – Exiting X… Follow me on Threads (@MattNavarra) September 20, 2017
Now that Instagram are starting to crack down on 3rd party developers, it’s nice to see Instagram officially adding some of the features natively. While there are some 3rd party apps out there that do offer certain “benefits”, the vast majority are only to provide features that Instagram should have built in anyway.
Many users are excited about this new feature, which they’re expressing through the medium of Twitter.
https://twitter.com/raaeganD/status/909528722067345408
Most seem simply curious about who follows them back, like I am. Although, some are excited for different reasons.
https://twitter.com/winsumonwin/status/910475587512238081
And iPhone users are just patiently waiting.
When you find out Instagram's new "follows you" feature is only available to Android users right now pic.twitter.com/etq2Ig8apg
— Brianna Moné (@thebriannamone) September 20, 2017
The update apparently seems to alert people when you stop following them, too. Which could make things awkward.
Instagram testing 'follows you' feature that will alert people when you've stopped following them https://t.co/b8piJ11gAF
— George Hopkin 👾 (@GeorgeHopkin) September 20, 2017
For me, I keep things simple with Instagram. If I like your stuff and want to see more of it, I’ll follow you. If I don’t, then I won’t. If I unfollow somebody because they start posting things I’m not interested in seeing, it’s their problem, not mine.
But, for others, Instagram is serious businesses, and they take this kind of thing personally. So, it will be interesting (and probably amusing) to see some of the arguments and discussions this sparks off as people start to fall out over being unfollowed.
John Aldred
John Aldred is a photographer with over 25 years of experience in the portrait and commercial worlds. He is based in Scotland and has been an early adopter – and occasional beta tester – of almost every digital imaging technology in that time. As well as his creative visual work, John uses 3D printing, electronics and programming to create his own photography and filmmaking tools and consults for a number of brands across the industry.
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6 responses to “Instagram adds native profile support for stalkers to see who follows back”
WTF is wrong with this website… everything was just fine but now this looks like Vanity Fair.
Who cares about that? I mean, if you run an Instagram for business then you just need to care about growing your business network and get more clients using the advantages of a social network.
Please!
Some people only follow those who follow them too. People on Instagram are pathetic. Mark Zuckerberg created a generation of small minded vanity trolls. Nothing good can come out of this.
I don’t get it. We’ve always been able to go to our profile to see who our followers are. At least my app on Android has had that feature for years.
It’s in the details. On a follower’s profile you will see that he is following you. Currently you would have to go through your list of followers and see if he’s on that list.
Hmm.. Okay. So it’s just easier now.
Yeah… I’ve already watched this Black Mirror episode.