Meta confirms taking “enforcement actions” against The OG App, which offers ad-free Instagram feeds, as developer UN1feed says Apple removed the App Store app
A third-party Instagram app, called “The OG App,” which promised an ad-free feed more like the original Instagram experience …
EngadgetKarissa Bell
Context & Ripple Effects
UN1feed had just positioned The OG App as an alternative interface for Instagram, with user-made feeds stripped of ads and suggested posts in its launch of the ad-free feed app. Meta's enforcement and the developer's report of an App Store removal turn that interface experiment into a distribution and platform-access dispute.
The episode puts Meta's control over the Instagram experience alongside Apple's control over iOS software distribution. It matters because The OG App's appeal depended on removing elements that Instagram itself uses to shape the feed.
First-order effects
UN1feed loses access to iOS users if the reported App Store removal holds, while Meta's enforcement constrains The OG App's ability to offer an ad-free Instagram feed.
Instagram users seeking The OG App's custom, no-suggestions feed are pushed back toward Instagram's own interface or any remaining distribution channels.
Second-order effects
Third-party developers building alternate Instagram interfaces face two immediate gates: Meta's enforcement over platform access and Apple's App Store review and removal decisions.
Meta retains control over whether ads and suggested posts appear in the Instagram experience, limiting an alternative client from competing on a simplified feed.
Third-order effects
The case reinforces interface-neutral platform governance as a practical constraint on third-party clients: a service can depend simultaneously on the underlying platform and the mobile storefront.
If such enforcement becomes routine, consumer demand for customizable social feeds will be served primarily through controls that Meta permits inside Instagram rather than standalone clients.
The trend: Major platforms are tightening control over the interfaces through which users access social services, with app-store distribution acting as a parallel enforcement layer.
Meta has banned the personal Facebook (not linked to OG) and Instagram (linked to OG) accounts for everyone on our team, permanently. Meta is intent on taking extraordinary measures to suppress and censor us simply because we did right by their users. https://twitter.com/...
Imagine a world where privacy would have enabled open tech API, much like we have open banking & PSD2. Instead we keep seeing big tech collude to keep their moats from new upstarts https://techcrunch.com/...
Instead of being able to shut the OG App down the only recourse Meta should have is to charge a reasonable fee for API access (capped at ARPU for an ad-supported enduser) https://twitter.com/...
Yesterday night, after we received 10,000 downloads, were #50 on the App Store, and had an average rating of 4.1 stars, Apple took us off the App Store. Users chose OG over Instagram because we listened to them and built what they wanted.
We are working on re-listing OG on the App Store. Until then, to get an ad-free and customizable Instagram experience, please download the OG app from the Google Play Store.
There are dozens of other apps in the top charts that replicate Instagram's user experience that have been there for years. However, none of them provide extra features or a better user experience. https://twitter.com/...
Apple - which side do you want to be on? Do you want to follow in Meta's footsteps and exploit your users? Or do you want to listen to your users and give them what they want - like you claim to do?
Yesterday, we got 10,000 downloads, were #50 on the App Store Rankings in Social Networking, all with an average rating on 4.1 stars. We made a version of Instagram people actually want and got covered by dozens of publications. Then, Apple took us off the App Store. https://twit…
We made a version of Instagram people actually liked, without all the garbage from Meta. Apple, who apparently cares about user privacy, took us down. https://twitter.com/...
We've got dozens of submission approved to the App Store in the past 3 months. They requested multiple changes to OG and we complied with all the changes they requested to fit within their guidelines.
The only way they would've been able to do this is if Meta searched up every team member on LinkedIn or Google, found our full name, and manually banned us since we never linked our Facebook accounts to OG (most of us haven't even opened Facebook for months).
Apple wants you to think they care about privacy more than any other tech company. They don't. Apple would rather spinelessly submit to Facebook's whim than do right by you.