Metro Weekly

Twitter blocks “Find Your Friends” feature on Instagram

Twitter Instagram

Techcrunch is reporting that the latest version of Instagram is missing a previously popular feature — the “Find Your Friends” component for Twitter. The feature allowed Instagram users to follow the same people they follow on Twitter. Writes TC’s Alexis Tsotsis:

We’ve learned that the feature is missing due to API restrictions from Twitter’s end, restrictions that possibly came about over concerns about Instagram’s scale and its strain on data pulls.

Many social apps like The Fancy and Foursquare still have access to this part of the Twitter API — it seems very likely that Instagram was the largest developer using the Twitter Friend Graph.

The decision is especially perplexing for multiple reasons having to do with Valley politics: Twitter founder Jack Dorsey is also an investor in Instagram and the two companies share Benchmark as an investor. One could speculate that this is a competitive move on Twitter’s part, a direct attack on Facebook’s social graph via limiting access to its recent acquisition (Instagram).

Instagram users can still tweet photos from the app.

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