You Can Prevent Instagram From Sharing Your Posts on Facebook
When you post on Instagram, you don’t expect to find it on other sites or platforms. After all, you posted it on Instagram , not Facebook. But Instagram posts, to the surprise of many inactive Facebook users, end up on Facebook. So what’s going on?
The meta may have tricked you into sharing your Instagram posts to Facebook.
According to The New York Times , the problem lies in Instagram’s dodgy strategy launched last year. At some point, the app may have shown you a pop-up asking if you want future Instagram posts to also be published on your Facebook page. If you rarely use your Facebook account, you’ll probably want to opt out of this setting and keep your posts on the app you’re actually active on. However, the opt-out option was a separate hyperlink, while the opt-out option was a large blue button.
It seems a lot of people have clicked on the big button, assuming it’s an option that will close the popup faster, without realizing that they’ve actually signed up for Facebook’s forever posts and everything that comes with it. This is exactly what Meta planned: the company was interested in increasing the number of users who share posts from Instagram to Facebook, and designed the pop-up in such a way that the majority of Instagram users agreed (knowingly or not) to constantly share their posts and stories on Facebook.
While some may enjoy having the same content on both platforms, others are horrified by it. For many, especially younger users, Instagram is more of a platform for sharing with friends, while Facebook is where – with a shudder – older people are. At least Facebook is a bit more “formal” where you make friends with everyone from family members to co-workers to former teachers. You may not want to share the same content with these people that you share with your immediate environment.
To be clear, Facebook’s integration with Instagram has always existed , long before the name change to Meta. The company, officially known as Facebook , acquired Insta back in 2012 for $1 billion and made it easy to share your latest gram on its Facebook page, as well as on Twitter, Tumblr, and several other apps. Last year they just decided to play dirty by tricking users into sharing more than they might want.
How to turn off Facebook sharing on Instagram
Luckily, disabling Facebook sharing is very easy. Instagram includes a Share to Facebook button on the last page before you share a post, but this option only disables posting for the current post. If you’ve agreed to keep sharing on Facebook, the toggle will be active again the next time you post. The same goes for stories: you can long-press “Your stories” to turn off posting to Facebook this time, but next time they will also be shared with Facebook.
You can permanently disable this option in Settings > Account > Other Application Sharing > Facebook . Disable all auto-sharing options here, including “Your Instagram Story”, “Your Instagram Posts” and, if you’ve set it up, “Your Instagram Reels”. You’ll also find a similar option on the post overview page. Tap “Advanced Settings” and then you’ll find the “Share Your Posts to Facebook” toggle under “Settings” .