More changes to social media API’s, the latest from Instagram
It’s been a whirlwind year trying to keep up with the various changes made by social media platforms – especially for professional communicators, developers, agencies, and brands.
At the same time as understanding and usage of the term ‘API’ has accelerated across offices worldwide, social media platforms have begun to restrict access to their application programming interfaces (APIs). With implications ranging from global politics to individual user privacy, that trend is showing no signs of stopping.
API changes have been introduced in order to reduce risks around data privacy, security concerns for users and stamping out improper use of user data.
Most of the changes can be categorised as:
How often and how much data can be requested (rate limit reductions); and
Type of data available (restrictions on user-identifiable data)
Generally, these are positive changes for the whole ecosystem. Users can be reassured at an individual level that there are more controls in place and consideration given to matters of privacy and the prevention of misuse. Facebook’s ‘Here Together’ video, released in the aftermath of the Cambridge Analytica data breach, reflects some of this desired messaging and the drives for these changes.
The latest changes have come from Instagram and more are set to be introduced on 11 Dec 2018.
Here’s how the changes impact the three types of Instagram analysis:
Owned media (for your brands’ own Instagram accounts): Better data on your owned Instagram profiles, but they need to be Instagram business profiles and you have to authenticate to access this data.
Public accounts (for other brands or influencer’s channels): This use case no longer exists for Instagram – there is no longer any data available for public Instagram accounts you don’t own.
Listening: Public hashtag listening on Instagram is no longer supported. Brands will need to move to brand mentions, photo tags and related hashtags.
These may not be the last of the changes, but they are necessary growing pains to regain user trust and provide higher quality authentic engagements. For small businesses and influencers these changes are fairly straightforward – however for those looking to manage communications or marketing strategies they present new challenges in order to stay informed.
These changes apply across the board so all API users will need to jump the same hoops and prove that both privacy measures are met and use of data is acceptable. If you’re interested, you can learn more about the official changes from Instagram read on here.
Loren is an experienced marketing professional who translates data and insights using Isentia solutions into trends and research, bringing clients closer to the benefits of audience intelligence. Loren thrives on introducing the groundbreaking ways in which data and insights can help a brand or organisation, enabling them to exceed their strategic objectives and goals.
With more than 1 billion users on Facebook, and millions more active on sites such as YouTube and Twitter, it has become obvious that social media is an important platform for businesses.
Connecting with the huge variety of consumers already on these sites can open up significant opportunities for marketing and lead generation. Additionally, social media monitoring provides insight and understanding into how your industry, audience and competitors are reacting to market trends and products.
As well as giving businesses and consumers a platform to share their thoughts and participate in ongoing conversations, social media is also a channel through which many people access news stories and important information.
A recent study from Pew Research found that 64 per cent of adults are active on Facebook, and 30 per cent are using the site to receive news. This means that approximately half of the people using Facebook trust the site to deliver their news.
Similarly, 16 per cent of US adults are active on Twitter, with exactly half of those (8 per cent) accessing the news through tweets.
Not only are users reading news on social media, but they are also participating in the sharing and telling of stories. Half of all social network users have shared news stories on their own profiles and a further 46 per cent have discussed news on social media.
However, while social networking sites are a popular media through which to access news, Pew Research found that users on these sites spend significantly less time engaging with the news they read.
Readers who visit news stories directly through a provider's website spend an average of 4 minutes and 36 seconds on each page. In comparison, those who arrive through a link on Facebook spend just 1 minute 41 seconds reading the page.
This shows that while news is being shared and read on social media sites, engagement is significantly greater when consumers go out of their way to access the stories.
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Blog
Is Social Media A Good Source For News?
With more than 1 billion users on Facebook, and millions more active on sites such as YouTube and Twitter, it has become obvious that social media is an important platform for businesses.
In the wake of the Facebook Cambridge Analytica scandal, there have been a myriad of changes impacting users of Facebook and Instagram content recently. These changes were made without any notice and were effective immediately which has impacted third-party apps worldwide.
Albeit the speed in which the changes have been made is likely to have been partly driven by the pressure to tighten data practices and potentially align certain timing as CEO Mark Zuckerberg prepares to testify before Congress next week to answer questions about the company’s privacy and data policies.From the perspective of everyday users accessing the content you know and love via the Facebook and Instagram apps will see little to no change. For developers like us on the other hand, the impacts are significant and are only a hint of what is yet to come.In case you missed it, the changes made have been many and impact all third-party apps, whether legitimate or not.
Given the changes have been quick, varied and came without prior notification, we’ve pulled together a quick summary of a few that left developers and other third-party content users of these content feeds frustrated:
Instagram have removed 17 ways of accessing content
This means something as simple as code to access recent posts of a public company, suddenly stopped working. Quick changes had to be made to use alternative methods.
Facebook & Instagram have removed access to many fields
Fields like how many followers a user has, or how many posts you have made, but many more have gone.
25x drop in Instagram content
The Instagram API restricted the flow of content by 25x, meaning that public posts previously being collected has been reduced significantly, requiring different approaches to be taken that are more efficient.
These are only a few of the changes that have happened with more expect in future. With CTO Mike Schroepfer commenting that they will lock down access, review previously allowed apps, and then hand out access to the apps that deserve it.
While this is promising from the perspective that Facebook is taking action to breath some confidence back into their data practices, it will still be interesting to see how they now start to crack down on third-party apps that are using and abusing content. With the advent of AI and machine learning, the content which appeared innocuous can now be exploited and abused in the wrong hands. That means Facebook is forcing all apps that have previously been approved for accessing Events, Groups and Pages, have to be reviewed again.
For the developers working on these changes behind the scenes, it's a difficult process but something we monitor constantly to ensure the client experience is supported, and uncompromised. While at times frustrating, it’s also fascinating to watch the complexities of today's interconnected environment play, shift and unfold.
Ian Young, Isentia Technical Architect
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Blog
No warning to Facebook & Instagram changes
In the wake of the Facebook Cambridge Analytica scandal, there have been a myriad of changes impacting users of Facebook and Instagram content recently. These changes were made without any notice and were effective immediately which has impacted third-party apps worldwide.
Australia has been a hot destination in higher education for international students, but with recent policy changes and growing anxiety around housing, the student journey has seen a shift, impacting intake into the top Australian universities and making the process a bit unpredictable.
In our analysis we also zoom into the Southeast Asian region, where we uncover what priorities drive students from this region to apply at Australian universities, how housing plays a role and what kind of career outcomes they would expect post-study.
In this report we analyse over 3k posts across social and online media to unpack:
How Australian universities are navigating a "crisis of governance" and public trust, with intense media scrutiny on budget deficits, leadership accountability, and long-term financial sustainability.
How the rapid integration of AI is seen as both a transformative academic toolkit and an existential threat, forcing institutions to prioritise AI literacy and redesign assessments to combat risks like deep fakes and academic misconduct.
How shifting Australian migration policies have made policy safety the primary concern for Southeast Asian students, influencing how they weigh university reputation against visa hurdles and long-term career ambitions.
Reflecting on the media reporting from 2025 provides institutions with the tools to craft communication strategies that address both the domestic demand for accountability and the international student's need for security and value.
Please fill in the forms below and access our reports to get a deeper insight on audience sentiment and behaviour when deciding an education and career in Australia.
Access the SEA insights report here
Access the ANZ insights report here
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Analysing Australia’s higher education landscape in 2025
A deep dive into how global audiences perceive Australian higher education and the university sector with a spotlight on the SEA region.
The media landscape is accelerating. In an era where influence is ephemeral and every angle demands instant comprehension, PR and communications professionals require more than generic technology—they need intelligence engineered for their specific challenges.
Isentia is proud to introduce Lumina, a groundbreaking suite of intelligent AI tools. Lumina has been trained from the ground up on the complex workflows and realities of modern communications and public affairs. It is explicitly designed to shift professionals from passive media monitoring back into the role of strategic leaders and pacesetters.
“The PR, Comms and Public Affairs sectors have been experimenting with AI, but most tools have not been built with their real challenges in mind.” said Joanna Arnold, CEO of Pulsar Group.
“Lumina is different; it is the first intelligence suite designed around how narratives actually form today, combining human credibility signals with machine-level analysis. It helps teams understand how stories evolve, filter out noise and respond with context and confidence to crises and opportunities.”
Setting a new standard for PR intelligence
Lumina is centered on empowering, not replacing, the human element of communications strategy. This suite is purpose-built to help PR, Comms, and Public Affairs professionals significantly improve productivity, enhance message clarity, and facilitate early risk detection.
Lumina enables communicators to:
Understand & Interpret: Move beyond basic alerts to strategically map the trajectory and spread of narrative evolution.
Focus & Personalise: Achieve the clarity necessary to execute strategic action before critical moments pass.
We are launching the Lumina suite by making our first module immediately available: Stories & Perspectives.
In the current fragmented, multi-channel media environment, communications professionals need to be able to instantly perceive not just how a story is growing, but also how it is being perceived across different stakeholder groups.
Stories & Perspectives organizes raw media mentions into clustered, cohesive Stories, and the Perspectives that exist within each, reflecting distinct media, audience, and public affairs angles. This unique functionality allows users to:
Rise above the noise: Instantly identify which high-level topics are gaining momentum or fading from attention.
Get to the detail, fast: Uncover the influential voices, niche communities, and specific channels actively shaping the narrative.
Catch the pivot point: Precisely identify the moment a story shifts—from a strategic opportunity to a reputation risk—or when a new key opinion former begins guiding the conversation.
"Media isn’t a stream of mentions," said Kyle Lindsay, Head of Product at Pulsar Group. "But rather a living system of stories shaped by competing perspectives. When you can see those structures clearly, you gain the ability to understand issues as they form, anticipate how they’ll evolve, and act with precision. That’s what we mean when we talk about AI built for communicators, and that's what an off-the-shelf LLM can't give you."
The Lumina Roadmap: AI tools for the future of comms
The launch of Stories & Perspectives is the first release of many. Over the upcoming months, we will systematically roll out the full Lumina roadmap, introducing a comprehensive set of AI tools engineered to handle every phase of the communications lifecycle.
The full Lumina suite will soon incorporate:
Curated media summaries: AI-driven daily summaries customized specifically to the priorities of senior leadership, highlighting only the most relevant stories.
Reputation analysis: Advanced measurement tracking how critical themes like ethics, innovation, and leadership are statistically shaping corporate perception.
Press release & media relations assistant: Tools designed to accelerate content creation and craft hyper-focused, personalized pitches that reach the precise contacts faster.
Predictive intelligence layer: Technology engineered to track and anticipate story momentum and strategic change before the window of opportunity closes.
Intelligent agents: Background agents continuously scanning all media channels for emerging key spokespeople and previously undetected reputation risks.
Enhanced audio, broadcast & crisis detection: Complete, real-time oversight of all channels—including audio and broadcast—enabling rapid context building and optimal crisis response delivery.
Want to harness the power of Lumina AI for your PR, Comms, or Public Affairs team? .
Complete the form below to register your interest.
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Announcing Lumina: The purpose-built AI suite for PR, Comms, and Public Affairs
An intelligent suite of AI tools trained on the language, workflows, and realities of modern public relations and communications.
