What Instagram Has Given Up On: Live Streams Now Restricted to Close Friends List Such live broadcasts are now limited to just a Close Friends list, said the company in a blog post on Thursday. Close Friends on Live lets users broadcast live with as many as three other people.

According to Instagram, this feature can be used to share what's on your mind, spontaneously catch up with friends, share memes, plan trips, do homework together, or simply hang out casually in real time.

Although Instagram introduced live broadcasts back in 2016, they had always envisioned the feature as public and hence viewed by everyone who follows you. It would appear that the feature has turned to be very popular among celebrities and influencers where such individuals can effortlessly use it to reach fans. Going live to everybody who follows you is certainly not a great idea for average users.

This new feature will give users some form of control over who is allowed to view their broadcast, which could make it an exciting option to try for many that haven't done it before.

The unveiling of this new feature indicates Instagram is still pushing towards more private and curated connections on its platform.

In late last year, the company rolled out a status feature called Notes that lets its users update their real-world friends using only text and emoji. Users can post a Note that will appear at the top of their friends' inboxes for 24 hours. As Instagram puts it, the feature is a great way to initiate conversations with the user's friends in a lightweight and private manner.

This makes it come to sense that the social network should release features for its daily users since, by default, these are "influencers" who miss the old days of Instagram, when the platform was all about connecting with your real-life friends.