Anyone can take new public Instagram photos and turn them into a Reel

Image: Meta

If your account is public, anyone on the platform will be able to modify your photos. Once the option is live, you will have to opt out, but it will be enabled by default.

The ability to mix public photos for use inside of Reels will be added in the coming weeks. The company went all in on short-form video in the hopes of keeping up with its popular competitor.

By default, it will be enabled, but there are ways to turn it off. The settings menu will allow users to turn off the remixes on individual photos. If you want to turn on remixing for individual posts, you will have to turn off the feature.

When it opened up all public videos for remixing in January it only made videos that were published after the change was made.

Today's change won't do the company any favors, as photographers have been skeptical of their photos being handled. In 2012 a change to the app's terms of service sent a wave of panic that the company would be able to sell users' photos, but similar concerns have persisted ever since. Adam Mosseri said that the photo sharing app is no longer a photo sharing app.

It could help photographers reach more people, but it could also put their work in contexts they don't want to see, so I would expect a lot of people to flip the switch off.