Instagram adds reposts, a DM location map and deeper Reels analytics

Instagram has rolled out a repost feature, letting users re-share public Reels and feed posts, which land in a new Reposts tab on the profile, a reblog-style mechanic long standard on TikTok. Like shares on Facebook, reposts are expected to become a visibility lever for creators.

The app is also testing a map feature inside direct messages that shows where friends were last active. It is opt-in with custom privacy settings, but users who prefer to keep location sharing off entirely can disable it under Settings, Story, live and location, Location sharing, by setting visibility to no one.

The Friends tab in Reels is expanding globally, showing what close circles have interacted with, with privacy controls over what is visible.

New analytics arrived the same week: a chart showing when people liked a Reel, media-level viewer demographics per piece of content, and a breakdown of which content drove the most new followers, giving creators sharper attribution for growth.

Separately, scrutiny is growing over privacy in Meta's AI chats. Contractors hired to improve the company's AI review real user conversations with its chatbots, and some report routinely encountering personally identifiable information: names, email addresses, phone numbers and photos. One contractor estimated that 60 to 70 percent of the thousands of chats reviewed weekly contained such data. The company says it maintains strict policies on who can access personal data in AI projects.

In the ongoing debate over AI-assisted writing, a lighter thread this week: the overuse of a certain punctuation mark has become one of the most obvious giveaways of unedited chatbot text, prompting a wider conversation about keeping an authentic voice while using AI tools. Writers remain split across platforms, with different assistants favored for different use cases.