Meta is following TikTok’s lead, and will restrict private accounts, and accounts with less than 1,000 followers, from going live. Here are the details.
Feature now limited to public accounts with 1,000+ followers
Since Instagram introduced its Live feature in 2016, it has been available to all users, whether they were major influencers, had just a handful of followers, or used a public or private account.
This week, however, users with private accounts or fewer than 1,000 followers were met with an alert when trying to go live:
Your account is no longer eligible for Live
We changed requirements to use this feature. Only public accounts with 1,000 followers or more will be able to create live videos.
Instagram didn’t announce the change in advance, leaving small creators and private account owners with no time to prepare.
The company later confirmed the new rules to TechCrunch, but didn’t offer a specific reason for the decision, other than noting that “the move is designed to improve the overall Live consumption experience.”
TechCrunch suggests the change may be financially motivated, as Live requires significant infrastructure:
Since hosting livestreams is expensive, Meta may have decided that it doesn’t want to support broadcasts with only a handful of viewers.
While there is no official data on the number of Instagram accounts with more than 1,000 followers, estimates suggest that only 13% to 26% of users meet that threshold. Companies often dispute these figures, but rarely provide more specific alternatives.
In practice, that means the new requirement puts the feature out of reach for as many as 1.7 billion of the platform’s roughly 2 billion users.
Do you use Instagram Live? Do you follow smaller creators who’ve lost access? Let us know in the comments.
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