Instagram now lets you disable read receipts in DMs

Instagram is finally giving some users some peace of mind. No, I am not talking about a page that puts out motivational and peaceful quotes to soothe your mind. It is a small yet important update that will give users a choice about using read receipts in direct messages (DMs). Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg and Instagram chief Adam Mosseri both announced through their Instagram Broadcast channels that the new feature to hide read receipts is currently in testing and will be rolled out to all users soon. Mosseri even shared a screenshot of what the toggle would look like.

The toggle lies under the heading called ‘Who can see your activity’ and when turned on, it will allow “others” to “see when you’ve read their messages.” A small note under the feature also says that read receipts will be always turned on for messages sent in the Vanish mode. Turning off read receipts will not let others know when you have read their messages, but at the same time, you will also not be able to see when they have read your messages.

With the upcoming feature, Instagram will become the second messaging app in Meta’s suite to offer the ability to hide read receipts. However, neither of the Meta executives said if Messenger is also getting read receipts anytime soon. Currently, Messenger will let you and others know when their messages have been read by default. The app that has supported read receipts for a long time is WhatsApp. When you send a message, you can know when it has been read by checking the colour of the ticks. But if you are not okay with others knowing when you have read their messages, you can turn the read receipts off. No blue ticks mean no one knows when you have read their messages.

For now, we do not know when Instagram is planning to roll out the read receipt functionality far and wide but do keep a check on your conversations in DMs to see when the “Read” word suddenly disappears.