Instagram rolls out reposts, map, and 'Friends' tab; users say copying TikTok

Here's good news for Instagram fans as the Meta-owned company has rolled out three major features for its users on Wednesday (August 6).

The new features include reposts, the map, and the “Friends” tab in the Reels section. The company said that the newly-introduced features would make it easier for users to stay in touch through the content they enjoy on Instagram.

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Instagram reposts

Instagram now allows you to repost public reels and feed posts, making it easier to share content you enjoy with your friends.

Reposts will appear in your followers’ and friends’ feeds and will also be saved in a separate tab on your profile, so you can always go back to revisit your reposts.

Original creators are always credited. If someone reposts your content, it can be shown to their followers, even if those users don’t follow you. This helps creators reach a wider audience organically.

To repost a reel or post, tap the repost icon. You can also add a note to your repost by typing into the thought bubble that appears on screen and tapping Save.

What is Instagram map?

The Instagram Map is a new feature that lets you connect with your friends in a fresh, low-key way, offering content that helps you and your friends explore and engage with the world around you.

You can opt to share your last active location with selected friends and turn it off anytime.

You can also open the map to see content your friends and favourite creators are posting from interesting or fun locations.

Regardless of whether you choose to share your location or not, you can use the map to explore location-based content.

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Privacy and location controls

Location sharing is off unless you opt in. If you want to share your location with friends, you also have controls to customise the experience. You can turn off location sharing at any time.

You can choose who sees your location: friends (mutual followers), close friends, selected people, or no one. You can disable location sharing for specific people or places.

If you use location sharing, your location is updated whenever you open the app or return to the app if it’s been running in the background.

Any content with a location tag can show up on the map including reels, posts, and stories from people you follow, notes from people you mutually follow

The Instagram Map is located at the top of your DM inbox.

Parental controls

If you're a parent using the supervision set up for your kids, you have control over your teen’s location sharing.

You’ll be notified if your teen enables location sharing. You can decide whether they can use the Map feature at all and who your teen is sharing his/her location with.

This is designed to support conversations around safe sharing practices.

Friends tab

Friends is a new tab in the Reels section that shows public content your friends have interacted with, along with recommendations from Blends you’ve joined.

It also makes it easy to start conversations around the content you see.

The feature helps you see which Reels your close connections are creating or engaging with. Instagram began rolling out the Friends tab earlier this year and has now launched it globally.

To use it, tap the “Friends” tab at the top of Reels. To switch back to your regular Reels feed, tap the “Reels” tab.

Instagram has also introduced controls for the Friends tab including options to hide your own likes and comments on reels and mute activity bubbles from specific accounts you follow.

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Online backlash

The Repost feature, in particular, is drawing comparisons to TikTok’s repost tool, which allows users to share others’ videos with their own followers — much like a retweet on X.