Instagram’s outages had been so unhealthy the app will now alert customers when the service goes down

Instagram is testing a new feature that can alert customers when the service is having main technical difficulties. The alert will seem as a notification in customers’ Activity Feed when “people are confused and looking for answers,” says Instagram. In different phrases: when the app’s programs take a severe and extended nose-dive, as they did final week.

It’s a wise characteristic from Instagram’s father or mother firm Facebook, given the chaos that’s induced when its companies go down. When Facebook, Messenger, WhatsApp, and Instagram fail, individuals usually marvel if there’s one thing fallacious with their connection, their web, or their account. A little bit notification telling customers, “Don’t worry, it’s not you, it’s us” will in all probability save a variety of confusion sooner or later.

Instagram says it’s testing the characteristic within the US for the “next few months,” and should roll it out extra extensively if it’s useful. It’s straightforward to think about comparable options being launched for Facebook’s most important service, WhatsApp; a messaging app that, for a lot of, constitutes their main mode of digital communication.

In the identical announcement at the moment, Instagram additionally stated it was introducing a brand new device named “Account Status” which can notify customers if their content material is reported as inappropriate. “We’ll start by making it easier for people to know whether their account is at risk of being disabled,” stated the corporate in a blog post. “In the coming months, we plan to add more information to this tool, giving people a better sense of how their content is being distributed and recommended across different parts of Instagram.”