Snapchat Is Suing Instagram, Facebook Owns Snapchat And Other Myths Surrounding Instagram's Stories Update

What happened to Snapchat? Is Snapchat suing Instagram for copying its stories? Did Facebook buy them out? Find out the facts about the confusing new Instagram update

On Tuesday, Instagram released its latest ‘Stories’ update and basically everyone’s confused. The update, which brings to Instagram features that could be considered nothing less than a direct copy of Snapchat, has users turned inside out wondering what happened to Snapchat, if Instagram or Facebook bought the company or if Snapchat will be suing Instagram for the blatant copycat. With so many rumors and questions roaming around, we decided to take a minute to break down exactly what’s happening with Snapchat and Instagram and the new ‘Stories’ update and dispel any myths that might be flying around

Fact #1: Instagram’s latest update adds a new “Stories” feature.

On Tuesday, Instagram published a blog revealing an upcoming feature called “Stories.” The new feature would allow users to post daily stories made up of a combination of photos and video clips taken during the day. The stories can be viewed by anyone that follows the individual. The update also incorporated a set of art tools for doodling on the photos or videos before adding them to the story. Stories expire after 24 hours. For anyone that uses Snapchat, all these features are likely to sound VERY familiar, which leads in to our next fact.

Fact #2: Yes, Instagram admits it did copy Snapchat

As soon as Snapchat users saw the new Instagram stories update they immediately started questioning if Instagram had copied Snapchat and a plethora of copycat memes and rants began appearing on Twitter. Surprisingly, though, Instagram has been pretty open about the fact that they did indeed copy Snapchat’s ideas in their Instagram Stories update. In an interview with TechCrunch, Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom readily admitted that Snapchat deserved “all the credit” for the idea behind the Stories update.

“When you are an innovator, that’s awesome. Just like Instagram deserves all the credit for bringing filters to the forefront. This isn’t about who invented something. This is about a format, and how you take it to a network and put your own spin on it,” said Systrom.

While it’s pretty ballsy for Instagram’s CEO to come out and say, “yeah we copied Snapchat,” the move has a ton of people wondering, if Snapchat will be suing Instagram or its owner, Facebook. This leads to our third fact.

Fact #3: No, Snapchat Is Not Suing Instagram Or Facebook

While we aren’t sure what the legal territory is in terms of borrowing “formats” as Instagram calls it, at this point in time there’s no evidence that indicates Snapchat will be taking any kind of legal action against Instagram for its Stories update. A fake news story on a website called TMZ Hip Hop, however, is proliferating the idea that Snapchat is suing Instagram or Facebook.

Fact #4: No, Instagram’s owner, Facebook, did not buy Snapchat

We added this fact because a lot of people who downloaded Instagram’s latest update and found a very Snapchat like new Stories option became pretty confused about the status of the two companies. Were they becoming one? With so many companies regularly acquiring other companies (ex: Snapchat owns Bitmoji, Facebook owns Instagram), it’s easy to see why some might think the two had merged.

In 2013 Facebook was attempting to buy Snapchat for 3 billion dollars but CEO Evan Spiegel turned it down. In an interview with Forbes, Speigel said, “There are very few people in the world who get to build a business like this … I think trading that for some short-term gain isn’t very interesting.”

Fact #5: Nothing has happened to Snapchat. In fact, it just got a new update.

Despite the fact that a #RIPSnap hashtag was trending on Twitter after Instagram’s new Stories update released, you don’t have to worry that the company is going under. Snapchat is its own unique entity and its genius is in the way it continually comes up with more surprising and fun features for its user to enjoy. The company recently revealed it had a daily user base of over 150 million. This surpasses Twitters daily user base. It also is the number one video-viewing platform ahead of Facebook and YouTube with over 10 billion videos watched daily. Just hours before this post was written Snapchat published its latest update, which included new Geo Stickers for 10 cities around the world. We love Snapchat and are pretty certain the company isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.