You Can No Longer Lurk On Instagram Unless You're Signed In

You can now no longer freely view everything on Instagram without an account. Instagram has stopped allowing people to look into a public account on its platform if they are not signed in to their own accounts.

The timeline for the rollout of this remains unclear, but the change was spotted and reported by Mashable on Wednesday. A spokesperson from Facebook confirmed the news.

Instagram did not respond immediately to a comment request.

In fact, you can view some rows of pictures but then the platform will require you to sign in for further scrolling. This will make it more difficult to dig deep into someone’s profile.

This change follows an earlier decision that the photo-sharing network made in October to remove the Following tab letting users view posts as well as accounts that their friends engaged with. The reason behind the removal of the Following tab is that a lot of users weren’t even aware that it was a feature.

Typically, the Following tab allowed people to see the accounts and posts that their friends were engaging with. The tab, which was introduced in 2011, was meant to assist new users in finding others to follow. But not many people were using this, so the company decided to get rid of it.

According to a spokesperson from the Facebook-owned company, Instagram is always working on how to make itself the best place for connecting with things and people you love. The process involves the introduction of new features, but at the same time includes the removal of older ones that are not useful anymore.