You’ve always been able to unfollow those pesky over-posters or no longer significant others on Instagram, but never before have you had the option to exercise such control over your own photo stream. That’s right, friends — you can finally decide who can see the images you post on the Facebook-owned photo sharing site, as Instagram has begun testing the option to remove followers with just a few taps.
While private account users have previously had the option of removing followers, that same functionality has not been available to the rest of us. At least, not until recently. In the last few months, a burgeoning proportion of public accounts have seen the option of manually suspending viewing privileges. And now, it looks like a larger group of Instagram users (at least on Android) are being given this same option. Instagram has confirmed that it’s testing the removal of followers, though it has yet to offer further information on a complete rollout for all Instagram accounts.
While you could block users before, the removal option is a bit less in-your-face. Instagram points out that when you choose to remove a follower, he or she will not be informed of the action. That means that there is, at least, plausible deniability on your side when your former follower begins to wonder why your photos, which were once visible to them, are visible no longer.
Instagram has been rolling out a series of changes in the last several months — most recently, it offered up a “mute” button, which like its Facebook parent, allows you to continue to follow individuals while completely eliminating the option of actually seeing their posts.
If you want to see whether or not you have the option of removing a follower, you will need to go to your own profile, tap on the followers button, and then look for the icon with three vertical dots to the righthand side of someone’s name. You should then be greeted with the option to remove him or her (if you have the option). iPhone users (like myself) have yet to see the function, though we can only imagine that it will be coming soon.
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