Instagram will let you pay $3.99 a month to preview someone’s story without showing up on the viewer list, and some users are raising privacy concerns.
But parent company Meta is pushing back on claims that Instagram Plus reveals who repeatedly viewed a story.
The feature shows how many times a story was replayed in total, a Meta representative told Fox News Digital, but it does not name the people behind those repeat views.
The subscription also adds a search bar to the existing viewer list, making it easier to check whether a particular person saw a story. Another feature, Story Preview, lets paying users take a quick peek at someone else’s story without showing up on that person’s viewer list.
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“Instagram Plus does not give subscribers more information about other people’s viewing habits,” 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 replay number could make a second view seem more meaningful than it is. Someone may simply swipe past a story too quickly and go back, she said.
What unsettled her most, she said, was watching the timestamps beside names on her viewer list. She claimed some names jumped back to the top with updated times, which she took as a sign those people had viewed her story again. She said she found herself refreshing the list throughout the day and worried that other subscribers could draw conclusions about her own viewing habits.
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Other Reddit users have made similar claims about changing timestamps. Those accounts have not been independently verified. Meta said replay counts do not identify individual viewers but did not directly address users’ claims that names move to the top of the viewer list with updated timestamps.
She also objected to Story Preview because a person who posts a story may not see everyone who took a look. Meta confirmed that a subscriber can take a mini preview without appearing on the viewer list but said people who post stories are shown a notice explaining that previews may not show up there.
The subscription costs $3.99 a month in the U.S., with prices varying by country, Meta said. It also lets users extend a story by 24 hours, give one story more prominent placement and add posts to their profile or highlights without putting them in followers’ feeds.
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The TikTok user said she would not renew her subscription. Other critics have been just as blunt. One Reddit commenter called the features “stalker central,” while another wrote, “PLEASE paywall instagram so i will finally delete the app.”
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