Did Instagram remove the double-tap-to-like feature? No, that's not true: Facebook, which owns Instagram, confirmed that the feature is still intact.
The claim appeared in an Instagram post (archived here) published on June 20, 2021. The text in the post's image read:
SAD NEWS
Instagram removed the feature of double-tap to like. Now only a few devices have it working
The caption of the post read:
im on a roll
This is how the post appeared on Instagram on June 22, 2021:
(Source: Instagram screenshot taken on Mon Jun 21 17:15:50 2021 UTC)
At the time this was written, Instagram's help center included an explanation of how to "like" a post. The double-tap feature is still an active feature on the platform. A screenshot of the explanation is below:
(Source: Instagram Help Center screenshot taken on Mon Jun 21 17:07:07 2021 UTC)
In a June 21, 2021 email to Lead Stories, a Facebook company spokeswoman said:
...we have not removed the double tap to like feature for people on Instagram.
The Instagram post is likely a ploy to get users to test whether their double-tap feature works. By testing the feature on the post, the post gains more likes.
(Editors' Note: Facebook, which owns Instagram, is a client of Lead Stories, which is a third-party fact checker for the social media platform. On our About page, you will find the following information:
Since February 2019 we are an active part of Facebook's partnership with third-party fact checkers. Under the terms of this partnership we get access to listings of content that has been flagged as potentially false by Facebook's systems or its users and we can decide independently if we want to fact check it or not. In addition to this we can enter our fact checks into a tool provided by Facebook and Facebook then uses our data to help slow down the spread of false information on its platform. Facebook pays us to perform this service for them but they have no say or influence over what we fact check or what our conclusions are, nor do they want to.)
