A Meta Inc. spokeswoman announced today that Instagram boss, Adam Mosseri, plans to locate to London temporarily to help reinforce operations in the region

The spokeswoman reported that the aim of this move is to increase the global expansion of Instagram by attracting a greater number of quality creators to earn their living from contributing to the platform.  

It is an interesting time for such an announcement as the Head of Instagram continues to diffuse the backlash generated over the past week in response to Instagram’s plans to increase its interface and feed to become more like rival, TikTok.  

Countering TikTok

Rationale for the London move has been attributed to the office being the second largest engineering hub for Meta outside of its U.S. headquarters with more than 4000 employees located there.

As TikTok continues to lead the way in downloads and user adoption with the teenage market, once the core audience demographic for Instagram, how this move plays out in terms of Instagram’s evolution will be anyone’s guess. 

What is apparent in the negative response from Instagram users regarding its plans to become more like TikTok is that the platform is clearly not listening to its loyal fans.

Instagram’s usual strategy of adopting the features of other platforms to prevent its current users from going elsewhere, may not be as effective as it once was. 

Instagram introduced Stories as a direct defensive tactic to prevent scores of users moving to Snapchat.

It continued using this strategy by adding features such as live video and most famously (and recently) creating Reels when India banned TikTok and the former U.S. President, Donald Trump, threatened to do the same.  

This recent backlash demonstrates that Instagram users are tired of the platform attempting to retain their interest by increasing its similarity with other social media sites.

Rather than imitation, it seems Instagram users want both innovation and familiarity to ensure Instagram maintains its uniqueness, rather than becoming more homogenous and generic.  

This move by Instagram boss, Adam Mosseri to London could be the perfect opportunity for Instagram to assess what its users really want so it can differentiate itself again in the social media landscape.  

– Karen Sutherland, University of the Sunshine Coast, contributed to this report.