Instagram is looking into planting advertisements that will “force” surfers to watch them

Your story is going to be delayed: Instagram is looking into planting delaying advertisements in the application, which will burden the surfers with up to eight, without being able to continue. Similar advertisements also appear on websites with a “counter” that counts the seconds until the end of the advertisement.The social media platform now allows people to swipe or scroll over ads that appear in its main feed of photos and videos, as well as its Stories and Reels feeds. But now she is testing a new feature – “pause for commercials” that will not allow her to pass by as usual. As mentioned, the ad will include a timer that counts down to zero before normal functionality can resume. Surfers will be forced to watch the advertisement before continuing surfing.

Instagram confirmed the report in a statement and said: “We are testing formats that may generate value for advertisers” and added that it will provide further updates if the test results in permanent format changes.

Meta, which owns Instagram and Facebook, is not the first major tech company to force people to watch ads: YouTube is also known for showing unskippable ads to users watching the platform or the TV app, if they don’t pay for the ad-free premium tier. Some users add ad-blocking tools and browser plugins as a way to get around ads that interfere with videos on the platform, but Google, YouTube’s parent company, is trying to block ad blockers for its part.

It is not yet clear whether forcing users to view advertisements actually helps companies: a study conducted by TikTok in January showed that forcing surfers to view advertisements may actually lead to less engagement. More than 70% of participants said they were more likely to engage in attempts to skip the ad or leave the app altogether, than to view the subsequent post.