The art of the soft launch just got even easier thanks to a new Instagram feature, but some are slamming the new tool as awkward and embarrassing.New relationships can be hard to navigate, when should you become official, when can you share them online?If you suddenly start seeing a load of blurry and pixelated Stories, don’t worry, your phone hasn’t broken.Instagram has now introduced a new function which allows users pixel-blur people in their posts.

While it might have been designed as a handy editing tool, some users have already found a rather more awkward use for it: hiding your partner.The new Pixel effect allows users to blur people or objects in a photo using a text prompt.Rather than manually covering someone’s face with a sticker or drawing over them, users can ask Instagram to pixelate a particular person or part of an image.The result can make someone almost impossible to identify while still leaving the rest of the photograph untouched.For the uninitiated, a soft launch is the social media equivalent of saying “I’m seeing someone” without actually saying it.A hand appears in the corner of a pic, someone’s trainers are visible under a restaurant table.Perhaps there is a suspiciously cropped shoulder on a beach holiday.The relationship is technically private, but everyone knows exactly what is going on.