Bangalore: Facebook’s recently acquired photo-sharing service, Instagram, cuts its support for the key Twitter Integration, exposing the growing rift between two social media giants, reports The Economic Times.

Kevin Systrom, CEO of Instagram said on Wednesday that his company disabled the support for twitter ‘cards’ to drive the twitter users to Instagram’s own website.

Previously the twitter users could use the contents of Instagram directly within a Twitter message with the feature called twitter ‘cards’.    

This step from the Instagram has exposed the growing rift between Facebook and Twitter since April when Facebook outbid Twitter to grab a fast growing photo sharing site Instagram in a cash and stock deal valued at $1 billion. However the acquisition was closed for about $715 million following the drop in Facebook’s share value.

This move from Instagram can also be seen as an apt reply for twitter’s July gig in which it blocked Instagram from using its data which could have helped new users of photo-sharing site to find friends.

Earlier this week the Twitter users complained about failing to open the Instagram photos properly on Twitter website, but Kevin Systrom’s statement on Wednesday about cutting the Instagram integration on twitter cleared the air off.  

"We believe the best experience is for us to link back to where the content lives," Systrom said in a statement, citing recent improvements to Instagram's website, where the users can directly “like” or “comment” the photos on the website itself. "A handful of months ago, we supported Twitter cards because we had a minimal web presence," he added.

Systrom also stated that Instagram users will be able to share to Twitter as they originally did before the Twitter “Cards” feature was implemented.