Flipside: legalized ‘Finstas’
The most popular social media app is getting decked up with new updates and features to give the users a wholesome experience while safeguarding their privacy.
The most recent update is the introduction of a feature called Flipside which legalises the concept of ‘finsta’, which is the fake instagram accounts that users make for stalking or private spam account or to get past age restriction.
The officializing of finstas through this new ‘flipside’ element allows users to link their main ‘verified’ accounts with a more limited and private pseudo-profiles that permits you to have only close friends on your list and have only selected followers.
Testing stage: No gurantee of launching.
This restricted profile will be linked to the user’s primary account, thus eliminating the need for a spam account. This would abate the fake profiles surfacing on the app and make Instagram more safe and authentic.
Still in the testing stage, this feature is made available only to a few users to record their feedbacks, reactions and opinions. Adam Mosseri, American businessman and head of Instagram clarified on Threads that this is just a trial phase of Flipside and there is absolutely no surety of it becoming an officially launched feature.
There were rumours in the crowd of Instagram’s plan to turn a persons’s deputy and more exclusive account into an authorised one to control the spread of cyber crime and sham accounts under wacky names. Mosseri’s post corroborated with the buzz of this novel feature being granted to a few users.
Swipe and flip profiles
Using Flipside, user’s can alternate between their main account and their finsta account, both of them linked via the same sign-in process. Despite this, both profiles, like the two sides of a coin could be designed differently, having distinct name. Bio, profile picture, followers and following.
To access the other side, you just have to swipe down on the profile. This feature is crucial in stabilising Instagram user’s veritability and age as numerous users create fake accounts to trespass the application’s age barrier.
Why the need for Flipside?
Flipside, still being an experiment, was first ideated in 2023 as the number of finstas on Instagram started mushrooming. In a hearing, Richard Blumenthal, a US Senator asked Meta, Instagram’s parent company to “commit to ending finsta’ to ensure security, ethics and handle the chaos on the app.
This connection of the primary and stalking profile allows a more concise and compact running of the app, facilitating the experience for both- the users and the administrators.
Upon hearing public’s demand for an option to have a private, smaller space for closer friends, instagram employees devised of this feature in December 2023, headed by prominent developer Alessandro Paluzzi.
Taglined ‘a new space just for you and your friends’, Flipside is accessible only to your selected contacts that you want to include into your more personal space.
