A 3rd-party Instagram app, referred to as “The OG App,” which promised an ad-free feed extra like the unique Instagram expertise, has been pulled from Apple’s App Retailer simply at some point after it formally launched. It’s not clear if Apple pulled the app on the request of Meta, however the social community confirmed it had taken “enforcement actions” towards the service.
“This app violates our insurance policies and we’re taking all applicable enforcement actions,” a Meta spokesperson mentioned in a press release. The spokesperson declined to elaborate on what these actions had been, or if it had been in touch with Apple, however pointed to a weblog submit outlining Meta’s insurance policies barring clone websites.
“A clone web site is a third-party web site that duplicates, in complete or partially, the content material of an current web site,” Meta explains. On Twitter, the builders of The OG App mentioned their total crew had been completely banned from Fb and Instagram on account of their ties to the service.
“Customers deserve the fitting to regulate what they devour, and OG will proceed to defend and struggle for that proper,” Hardik Patil, on of the app’s founder’s advised Engadget. He mentioned he had obtained no direct communication from Meta.
Meta has banned the private Fb (not linked to OG) and Instagram (linked to OG) accounts for everybody on our crew, completely.
Meta is intent on taking extraordinary measures to suppress and censor us just because we did proper by their customers. pic.twitter.com/JOzJ81p81k
— The OG App 🔗 (@TheOGapp_) September 28, 2022
The OG App had been within the works for greater than a 12 months, based on TechCrunch, which reported its preliminary launch. The app’s founders advised the publication they needed to offer a “cleaner” model of Instagram with out promoting. The app featured customizable feeds with out Reels, instructed posts and different newer options which have at occasions been controversial amongst longtime Instagram customers. The Android model of the app is at the moment nonetheless accessible.
Meta’s insurance policies have lengthy barred third-party Instagram purchasers, and lately the corporate has filed numerous lawsuits towards builders who break its guidelines, together with these barring clone websites. On the similar time, the corporate has additionally been accused of utilizing those self same insurance policies to close down reliable researchers’ makes an attempt to review the platform.
Nevertheless, on this case, it appears the creators of the OG App had been clearly breaking Instagram’s insurance policies. The corporate doesn’t supply a public API for builders to construct their very own variations of Instagram, and on Twitter, The OG App mentioned they needed to “reverse engineer” the Android API. The app additionally raised privateness issues about how the builders had been defending customers’ account info.
Regardless of this, the app had already gained a whole lot of followers as a consequence of its extra simplified — and ad-free — expertise. Instagram has additionally been coping with a backlash towards its aggressive pushing of Reels and beneficial content material. The OG App mentioned it had racked up greater than 10,000 downloads earlier than its elimination from the App Retailer “as a result of we listened to them and constructed what they needed.”
All merchandise beneficial by Engadget are chosen by our editorial crew, impartial of our mum or dad firm. A few of our tales embrace affiliate hyperlinks. If you happen to purchase one thing by way of one in every of these hyperlinks, we might earn an affiliate fee. All costs are right on the time of publishing.
