The official announcement was made by Kevin Systrom, Instagram’s CEO, during the prominent LeWeb online technology conference in Paris. Systrom explained that while the majority of Instagram photos are actually shared on both Facebook and Twitter, the company is moving in a direction that will pay greater attention to its online properties.

On Sunday, December 9th, Twitter posted an update on the situation, explaining that Instagram had effectively switched off its integration with the popular microblogging social network. Just like Systrom had explained at the LeWeb conference, all Instagram photos shared on Twitter will now appear as a link that takes users to the Instagram website. This termination applies equally to photographs shared by Twitter users on individual tweets or photo galleries maintained by users.

Some journalists and bloggers covering the social media scene grumbled about what they perceived as an antisocial move by Instagram. The Wall Street Journal recalled the statement made by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg upon his acquisition of the photo sharing service. Zuckerberg essentially explained that his company intended to allow Instagram users to post their photos to other social networks. When pressed about this change of heart, Systrom mentioned that things are subject to change as the company evolves.

The Instagram vanishing act arrives at a time when Twitter has also been pegged as an antisocial network for its implementation of restrictions on its application programming interface (API). With regard to those restrictions, Twitter has explained that recent limitations on its API and data are for the purpose of protecting the privacy of their users. It is important to note, however, that Twitter plans on releasing its own Instagram-like photo filters for smartphone users of its mobile app.

Instagram users who still wish to feature and share their photos on Twitter may still do so by linking to the Web page wherein the photo is displayed.