Instagram users find themselves being redirected to the Facebook website when reporting other users of the photo-sharing website.
Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) acquired Instagram last year for $1bn in cash and stock, but Facebook founder and CEO Zuckerberg pledged to continue the development Instagram as a separate brand.
Facebook assured users that their experience with the service would not change after the Facebook takeover and that the service would “grow independently.”
When the acquisition of Instagram by Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) finally became official, Michael Schroepfer, Vice President of Engineering at the company, wrote on the Facebook newsroom:
“As we said from the beginning, we are committed to building and growing Instagram independently. Instagram will continue to serve its community, and we will help Instagram continue to grow by using Facebook’s strong engineering team and infrastructure. We also can’t wait to work with the talented Instagram team to improve the mobile experience.”
Although Facebook hasn’t yet backtracked on that position, the two services are gradually being integrated together.
The latest integration of the two services comes in the form of user reporting. Instagram users who choose to report another user are now directed to Facebook to complete their report.
The Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) page then prompts users to report an Instagram profile, giving them the options of reporting them for spam, nudity, hate speech, or being an underage user.
There are links on the Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) page that direct users back to Instagram for clarification on the various report options.
“Instagram is owned by Facebook, so if you’re logged into Facebook we may use your Facebook account info to help us figure out what’s going on,” says a message on the report form.
Some users of Instagram were already put off by the potential that Facebook may be able to sell their photos, so this explicit linking of data sharing between the two companies may scare some users who are particular about their privacy.
Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) shares were up by 3.06 percent today, valued at $29.64 per share.
