How To Use The Close Friends Feature On Instagram And Share Your Stories With A Select Group Of Followers
© Klaus Vedfelt/Getty Images Instagram's Close Friends feature lets you easily control who sees certain stories. Klaus Vedfelt/Getty ImagesYou may not want to share your Instagram Stories with every one of your hundreds of followers. Thanks to the Close Friends feature, you can curate a select list.
If you've ever seen someone's Instagram Story have a green ring around it, that means it's only for that person's Close Friends list, which you're on. The Close Friends feature allows you to post Instagram Stories for a particular group of followers that can be changed at any time. When you add or remove someone, Instagram won't notify them.
Here's how to add people, edit, and post Stories for your Instagram Close Friends list using the Instagram app for iPhone and Android devices.
Check out the products mentioned in this article: iPhone 11 (From $699.99 at Apple) Samsung Galaxy S10 (From $699.99 at Walmart) How to use the Close Friends list on Instagram1. Open Instagram on your phone.
2. Tap your profile icon in the bottom-right corner.
© Marissa Perino/Business Insider Your profile icon is represented by a photo you chose. Marissa Perino/Business Insider3. Tap the three bars in the upper-right corner of your screen, and then tap "Settings."
4. Tap the "Close Friends" option.
© Marissa Perino/Business Insider You can find this on the Settings menu list beneath the "Shopping Bag." Marissa Perino/Business Insider5. If you've never used Close Friends before, you'll be greeted with a description of the feature. Tap the blue "Get Started" button to begin adding to your list.
© Marissa Perino/Business Insider You won't see this option if you've already used the feature. Marissa Perino/Business Insider6. If it's your first time, tap the "Create List" option at the bottom.
7. Tap the "Add" button next to any of suggestions provided.
© Marissa Perino/Business Insider Scroll through your Instagram followers list to "Add" users to your "Close Friends" list. Marissa Perino/Business Insider8. You can also search for a specific name by selecting the "+" button in the upper-right.
9. Tap the green "Remove" button to remove names from your "Close Friends" list.
© Marissa Perino/Business Insider You can remove friends at the same time you add them. Marissa Perino/Business Insider10. Once you've finalized your list, tap "Done" in the upper-right corner.
How to post an Instagram Story for just your Close Friends list1. Open the Instagram app on your phone.
2. Swipe right to access your camera
3. Upload or take a photo or video and customize it as you wish.
© Marissa Perino/Business Insider Prepare a Story post to share with Close Friends. Marissa Perino/Business Insider4. Tap the green Close Friends icon at the bottom of the screen to share it immediately.
5. You can also tap the "Send To" at the bottom of the screen and select the "Close Friends Only" option.
© Marissa Perino/Business Insider Tap to view your list of people if you need a reminder of who is on it. Marissa Perino/Business InsiderVideo: Twitter says hackers saw some private messages (Reuters)
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Tom Cotton Cries ‘Fake News’ When ‘Fox & Friends’ Directly Quotes Him On Slavery
© Provided by The Daily BeastThe hosts of Fox & Friends waited until the final moments of their interview with Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) to bring up the comments he made about slavery and The New York Times’ ‘1619 Project’ over the weekend. Cotton used the opportunity to accuse them of spreading “fake news.”
“Senator Tom Cotton, you’re in the eye of the storm, you like to take on red-hot issues, including ‘The 1619 Project,’” Brian Kilmeade said as the senator smiled awkwardly. He then quoted directly at length from Cotton’s interview with the Arkansas Democrat Gazette.
“We have to study the history of slavery and its role and impact on the development of our country because otherwise we can’t understand our country,” Cotton said in that interview. “As the Founding Fathers said, it was the necessary evil upon which the union was built, but the union was built in a way, as Lincoln said, to put slavery on the course to its ultimate extinction.”
After reading that quote allowed, all Kilmeade had to say was, “Some say that was insensitive.”
“Well, that is fake news, Brian,” Cotton replied, chuckling uncomfortably. “That is not what I said.”
“What I said is that many Founders believed that only with the Union and the Constitution could we put slavery on the path to it’s ultimate distinction,” the senator continued. He did not clarify whether he believed Fox or his local newspaper actually misquoted him at any point or if we just cleaning up the comments after the fact.
“Of course slavery is an evil institution,” Cotton added, “in all its forms, at all times, in America’s past or around the world today.”
Somehow, there was a “but” coming.
“But the fundamental moral principle of America is right there in the Declaration: ‘All men are created equal,’” he said. “And the history of America is the long and sometimes difficult struggle to live up to that principle.”
“That’s a history we ought to be proud of, not the historical revisionism of ‘The 1619 Project,’ which wants to indoctrinate America’s kids and teach them to hate America,” Cotton continued, as Kilmeade’s co-host Steve Doocy could be seen typing on his phone. “To believe that America was founded not on human freedom, but on racism. To think that slavery was not an aberration, but the true heart of America.”
In response to Cotton’s comments, ‘The 1619 Project’s’ Nikole Hannah-Jones tweeted over the weekend, “Were the Founders right or wrong, @TomCottonAR, when they called slavery a ‘necessary evil upon which the Union was built’? Because either you agree with their assessment of slavery as necessary or you admit they were lying and it was just an evil and dishonorable choice. Which?”
Cotton’s interview on Fox fell short of answering her question.
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Mask-wearers Butt Heads With Family, Friends Who Won't Follow The Rules
The COVID-19 pandemic prompted a role reversal between Jeffrey Barton and his mother.
Barton, 49, of St. James, who is an avid believer in social distancing and wearing masks, is acting as the strict parent, prohibiting his 94-year-old mother from attending her cherished weekly lunches with friends because they don’t wear face coverings or stay a safe distance from each other.
“It’s a schism,” Barton said. “She feels animosity toward me for facilitating the loss of her friends. They sort of keep inviting her. But they won’t agree to the ground rules. They won’t agree to meet safely.”
Barton is not alone in this newfound tension.
Long Islanders who describe themselves as strict mask wearers and followers of social distancing are butting heads with people closest to them — family, friends and neighbors — who don’t necessarily share their concerns during the coronavirus crisis.
Even when Long Islanders find themselves on opposite sides of the debate on how seriously to take the health scare, living among each other leads to varying outcomes, they said.
These include interacting with each other despite differences; choosing to stay away entirely; or as in Barton’s case — who is in the driver’s seat as his mother’s chauffeur — sometimes, there is no compromise among disputing parties.
That is how it is playing out in Liz Cohen’s home in Port Jefferson Station as well. Cohen, 56, said she frequently has to put her foot down with her 16-year-old daughter Gianna, who has been invited to get-togethers with friends. Cohen was unconvinced attendees would wear masks or practice social distancing.
Being stern because of concerns over the coronavirus has not been easy for Cohen, who lives alone with her daughter.
“It’s unbearable,” she said. “Only because I have to prevent her from doing things that I know she wants to do that other kids are doing.”
She added it’s not only the behavior of teens she worries about, but also their parents. Cohen has told her daughter she is at risk of the disease because of her age in the most blunt terms.
“You get the usual, ‘Well, this parent doesn’t do that and her parents don’t do that.’ But I tell her, if something happens to me, then you’re an orphan. I hate to throw that at her, but that is the reality,” Cohen said.
Alicia Bosley, director of the Marriage and Family Therapy program at Hofstra University, said disagreements between relatives, loved ones and neighbors over health precautions during the pandemic are common.
She said it’s important for people, even those who view COVID-19 as life-threatening, to “treat it like you would any other disagreement.”
Bosley said no matter what side of the argument one falls under, it’s also necessary to realize that everyone is fearful.
“We are all scared for different reasons. It’s fear of something, whether it’s losing your health or losing your liberty,” she said.
Bosley said all conflicts should be approached in a respectful manner, without condescension or judgment. She acknowledged that sometimes the only resolution is to step away from the relationship. But it’s also critical to remember the physical separation is temporary.
“When this is all over, you can go back to being close as friends, neighbors and family," Bosley said.
Joanne Hamilton, 69, who splits residency between Holtsville and East Hampton, has preserved a relationship with a longtime friend who, unlike her, doesn’t wear a mask in public.
Hamilton also often encounters that problem with her neighbors in her Holtsville co-op complex, where some residents are lackadaisical about shielding their faces with masks, which irks her, she said.
But Hamilton chooses to have more patience for a friend who doesn’t wear a mask when the two take long walks in East Hampton.
“She doesn’t wear a mask. It’s not worth losing a friendship of 18 years,” Hamilton said. “She’ll probably wear it if I ask her to, but she’s so uncomfortable with it.”
For Sharon Weingarten, 57, of Smithtown, life has been flipped upside down because of the pandemic, which has kept her away from her sister and other loved ones.
Weingarten has health issues like her mother, 79, and father, 86, who both live with her, making navigating life with friends and family a very delicate matter.
Also complicating things, Weingarten’s son, 25, recently temporarily moved into the home from Florida, where he lives permanently.
To survive under one roof, Weingarten’s parents live upstairs, while she and her son live downstairs. Mother and son are quarantining from Weingarten’s parents for two weeks — because COVID-19 cases have exploded in the Sunshine State — by staying away from the elders in the home, Weingarten said.
The two floors have separate air vents and kitchens, she said.
“I’ve been extremely, extremely, almost neurotically careful because I don’t want my parents getting sick. I worry more about them than me,” Weingarten said.
As an additional precaution, Weingarten said for weeks she has stayed away from her sister’s family, which includes her sibling’s two teenage children, as that family resumes a more normal routine in public.
They have been “banished from even coming on our patio out back,” Weingarten said. But, Weingarten added, unlike some Long Island families and their friends, everyone in her clan is lockstep over the decision, she said.
“They don’t have a problem with it,” Weingarten said. “We FaceTime and we talk on the phone. We text. We all stay in touch because we are a very close family.”
Antonio Planas joined Newsday in 2018 and covers the Town of Islip. An award-winning reporter and Michigan State University alumnus, he has worked at the Boston Herald and Las Vegas Review-Journal.
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