Instagram to Test Repost Feature

Instagram will soon start testing the reposts feature, which has long been present on many social networks. It was accidentally discovered in the profile of platform head Adam Mosseri by consultant Matt Navarra.

Reposts in the feed are "shown in a separate tab in your profile" along with posts, reels and tagged photos, and will be visible to followers.

A Meta spokesperson told TechCrunch:

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. We plan to test this soon with a small number of people.

Users have been able to repost since 2018 using a third-party Instagram apps, while the official client has never had such a feature. However, Instagram will allow reposts to appear in both the main feed of posts and Stories. They will be in a separate tab on the profile and can be commented on.

This feature was introduced in TikTok, Instagram's main rival, at the beginning of 2022. However, reposts of videos from TikTok only appear in "For you" feed, not in users’ own profile.

Trying to compete with TikTok Instagram sometimes ventures into overly bold experiments. Recently, after complaints from users, a test version had to be rolled back. Social media experts fear that the reposting feature could suffer the same fate, since in Instagram's case it would be promoting content from people unfamiliar to readers.