Instagram finstas could become a new product called ‘flipside,’ for close friends

Instagram is considering a new feature called “flipside” that lets users create a private side of their profile to post more candid and personal photos for a select group of friends. The feature productizes “finstas”—alternative Instagram accounts where people post their real-life photos instead of their polished public Instagrams.

The term entered the mainstream discourse years ago when the ill-informed U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal asked the company’s head of global safety, Antigone Davis, “Will you commit to ending finsta?” sparking online mockery. However, the main concern was that Instagram was profiting from teens setting up private accounts without their parents’ knowledge.

With “flipside,” Instagram could make it easier to share photos and videos with a private group of friends without creating a separate account or one outside Instagram’s parental controls.

It was originally called “Your Space.” Reverse engineer Alessandro Paluzzi noticed it in development. He found screenshots from Instagram that explain “flipside” as “a new space just for you and your friends” where “only the people you choose can see this side of your profile and what you share here.”

Swipe down on a user’s profile to flip them.

Instagram said the project is an internal prototype and not yet in public testing.

However, the development follows the expansion of features that let users restrict content to close friends. Instagram’s “Close Friends” feature, originally for private stories, appeared in the main feed in November. That allowed users to share a photo, video, or reel with a subset of their app friends, who could see and comment. If “flipside” goes live, those posts may live on a separate side of the user’s profile instead of in the main feed.

After saving users the hassle of setting up an alternate account, the feature could challenge rival social apps for close friends, like BeReal, which prompts users to post candid photos daily and is adding private groups, or Locket, which has Home Screen widgets for friends’ new photos. It may also attract users who used X’s Close Friends-like Circles feature (formerly Twitter Circles), which was discontinued.

Instagram didn’t say much about Flipside’s development, but Paluzzi found that users could create a Flipside profile picture, name, and bio separate from their public profile. Tools to manage which friends saw your flipside and “remove everyone” for a fresh start were also available. Sexting would not be possible because Instagram’s community guidelines apply to everything users post on their flipside.

Flipside’s public launch was not announced, and internal prototypes often remain that way. Still, the feature would be an interesting addition to Instagram, as it would capitalize on current usage. Users searched for their friends’ flipside and browsed a second set of posts, which could boost engagement.