Instagram users may have encountered an unexpected change today when trying to scroll through their feed. Instead of being able to vertically scroll through Instagram, the change temporarily switch it to a horizontal scroll.
TechCrunch reported that the change was due to a bug that mistakenly rolled out the change to the Instagram feed. Many users found the change from vertical scrolling to horizontal scrolling to be annoying.
Adam Mosseri, Head of Instagram, posted an explanation on his verified Twitter account: “Sorry about that, this was supposed to be a very small test but we went broader than we anticipated.” This was in response to another Twitter user who was noticed the unexpected horizontal scroll and who commented about it to Adam Mosseri.
The Verge reported: Only a few minutes after the horizontal feed went live, the old-fashioned vertical feed seems to have reappeared for most of the users who had been seeing the horizontally scrolling test.
I checked my Instagram, and it is allowing me to scroll vertically through it. The bug had been fixed before I learned that it temporarily changed the feed to a horizontal scroll.
I’m not sure why the switch away from a vertical scroll was such a big deal for so many Instagram users. Change is hard, I suppose. If anything, it is possible that the bug that launched the horizontal scrolling more widely than expected was useful. It gave Instagram plenty of user feedback to consider.