The Real Reason Instagram's 'Recent' Tab Is Disabled In The US

Instagram users may have noticed what appears to be a glitch recently while scrolling their feeds. People on the social media platform based in the U.S. currently cannot access the "Recent" tab from hashtag pages.

Users visiting hashtag pages on Instagram can now only see the top posts in each category, and will not be able to filter results by the most recent uploads. While this may seem like an app error, the move was actually a deliberate one and will only be in effect temporarily.

"As we near the U.S. elections, we're making changes to make it harder for people to come across possible misinformation on Instagram," the platform announced on Twitter on October 29. "Starting today, for people in the U.S. we will temporarily remove the 'Recent' tab from hashtag pages. We're doing this to reduce the real-time spread of potentially harmful content that could pop up around the election."

While Instagram announced that the feature will only be disabled in the U.S., CNET reported that users in the U.K. have also been unable to access the "Recent" tab.

Instagram is owned by Facebook, whose CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, said last week that he's worried about "the risk of civil unrest" due to the election. "I'm worried that with our nation so divided and election results potentially taking days or weeks to be finalized, there is a risk of civil unrest across the country," he said on a call discussing the company's third-quarter earnings (via CNBC). "Given this, companies like ours need to go well beyond what we've done before."

The company has recently taken other moves to stop the spread of misinformation, including providing accurate election information as well as banning content bearing false information, such as Holocaust denialism.