Instagram is disabling the ability to share posts from your feed to stories as part of a test. Instagram, via a notification banner: “We hear from our community that they want to see fewer posts in Stories ... During this test, you won’t be able to add a feed post to your Story.”

Disabling this feature is extremely harmful to 1) small creators, businesses, artists, organizations, and mutual aid funds & 2) the spread of vital information & resources 

1) Small businesses, artists, organizations, and mutual aid funds will be greatly affected by this change.

While large corporations can afford to pay for advertising through influencers or social platforms themselves, small organizations can’t afford to do this. With the implementation of the feed to story change, small businesses, artists & creators have been able to grow.

One small business, @goldenhippieco said “I’m a small business owner and repost are like digital word of mouths! I need this feature to stay @goldenhippieco” on another similar petition.

For artists especially, this has been a main way that they’ve received more clients and increased their audiences. Taking this feature away would only serve to benefit large corporations, while robbing smaller creators of the opportunity to succeed independently.

2) Instagram has recently seen an influx of information and resources spreading on its platform, primarily through the function of feed to story resharing.

Social-change focused Instagram platforms like ours at @Impact have only been able reach millions of more people through this function. One of our posts, “Ban Anti-Homeless Architecture” received hundreds of thousands of shares and resulted in an increase of approximately 500,000 content views. Without the story sharing function, we wouldn’t be able to spread information as effectively and widely.

There are hundreds of accounts like ours who all depend on this function to both grow their platforms and reach more minds. Taking this function away will destroy this ecosystem of learning, growth, and impact. Some accounts of these information-sharing accounts include: @150.reasons, @activismandstuff, @everydayracism_, @intersectionalenvironmentalist, @kimsaira, @mattxiv, @nastyfeminism, @itspaulwarren, @seedingsovereignty, @shityoushouldcareabout, @soyouwanttotalkabout, @theslowfactory, @theunplugcollective, @vibesofablackgirl, @wereleavingearly, @femalecollective, @nowsimplified, @thedailyaus, & @therecount. All of these platforms utilize this feature to spread information and enact social change. Taking this feature away would diminish the value and impact of our collective efforts.

Please join us in and sign this petition to reverse Instagram’s potentially destructive update.