Instagram is testing a new feature that would see users receive a notification during a server outage.

Following a pair of recent, wide-reaching blackouts for users across Facebook’s network of Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger and, of course, Facebook itself, more clarity could soon be available.

In a new blog post, the app suggests that the feature would help alleviate the confusion from users as they look for answers. The team at Instagram, it says, want users to know when technical issues are floating around.

Not every server issue will see users receive a status notification – which is good, because otherwise we all may as well be added to the Instagram developer Slack channel – but it does seem like bigger outages will trigger a pop-up.
“This test will run in the US and go on for the next few months. Just like any experiment, this may be something we roll out more widely, but we want to start small and learn. And if it makes sense to, we’ll expand to more people,” Instagram says.

While the proposed change does benefit the user and clears up any potential confusion regarding the status of Instagram, this is still only a small potential rollout.

Since everybody’s favourite digital age pastime is notifying followers about another platform’s outage, and the event of an outage would force users to other platforms anyway, this notification, we imagine, would probably only be truly helpful to those who limit themselves to Instagram – or when an outage is region-specific.

We suspect Instagram is working much harder on trying to ensure these outages don’t happen in the first place.

source: pocket-lint