Instagram has reportedly rallied from a turbulent year to now reach two billion monthly active users.
According to CNBC, sources from the Meta-owned business have revealed that Instagram has managed to reach the new milestone just three years after reaching the one billion mark back in June of 2018, an amount that took the platform eight years to accumulate. Unfortunately, since the announcement of those figures, the company itself has not revealed specific user counts in its financials, but one of its employees speaking under anonymity confirmed that Instagram managed to hit the two billion mark just a week before Facebook rebranded to Meta back in October.
Despite the impressive figures, as the report points out, the social media platform’s success in figures may actually come as a curse as much as it is a blessing. Meta, in general, has already been under fire by U.S. regulators for its overwhelming market share within the industry, and the negativity is now compounded by a recent leak of documents indicating that Instagram knew it had detrimental effects on the mental health of teenagers but chose not to do anything about it.
Since these accusations surfaced from whistleblower and former Instagram employee Frances Haugen, the Congressional committees have held a series of hearings to discuss the negative impact social media has on the youth, with numerous senators even analogizing Meta’s addiction-inducing practices to those of Big Tobacco.
Instagram has declined to comment.
Elsewhere in tech, Snapchat has debuted launched a new standalone video editing app called Story Studio.
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