The Latest News From Instagram: August 2025

By Brittany Siminitz | August 11, 2025

Instagram has debuted a trio of options to help users connect with their friends (followers a user also follows) and increase engagement.

One new feature is the friends tab in reels, where users can see public content their friends have interacted with, thus highlighting reels that people are engaging with.

For those reels users love, they can share them via a new repost option, which recommends the reposts to friends’ and followers’ feeds. The reposts will live in a separate tab on the profile, so users can go back and visit their reposts.

This bodes well for businesses and individuals whose content gets reposted, as it will be credited to the creator, potentially expanding the reach of their Instagram presence.

The third recent addition on Instagram is a map enabling users to share their locations with friends. This new feature has been somewhat controversial, due to concerns about privacy. Instagram assures users who do not want to share their current location that one must opt in to use the map and it can be turned off anytime.

“To start, location sharing is completely off. Your location will only be shared if you decide to share it, and if you do, it can only be shared with a limited group of people you choose,” said Instagram chief Adam Mosseri in a statement. “If you do decide to share your location, the three options are a custom list you make, your ‘close friends’ list, or followers you follow back.”

In addition to these enhancements, Instagram is reportedly trying out other features to personalize users’ experience, including a function called picks, for highlighting interests. Currently in prototype mode, picks would enable users to showcase an interest in order to “find overlap with friends who are all about it too,” according to Instagram. If released to the public, picks would offer another way for users to build connection and could provide engagement opportunities for brands.

Finally, Instagram made some waves with creators earlier this summer when it restricted livestreaming to users with 1,000 or more followers. This follows another livestream restriction, applying to users under age 16, that Instagram implemented in the spring, though it is in line with the livestream requirements of TikTok.

(Image via Instagram)