People are still hankering for the "good old days" more than five years after Instagram switched from a strictly chronological to an algorithmic feed. Instagram has published a new blog post that aims to clarify some of the "misconceptions" about how it surfaces content, despite the fact that the company is not interested in reverting back to how it did things in the past. The blog, published by Instagram's CEO Adam Mosseri, begins by stating that no single algorithm determines what you see across the entire app. Instead, each element of the software has its own set of rules for ranking content.
Although they're "tuned to how users use it," all of the algorithms work in a similar manner. When it comes to your Feed and Stories queues, for example, Instagram says the goal is to show you photos and videos from your friends, family, and other people you concern about.
The app ranks each post depending on the information it takes from it. According to Instagram, there are "thousands" of these "signals," but one of the most significant is the popularity of a post on the majority of occasions. It will, however, take into the act on your recent behaviour as well as your history of connecting with others. Instagram will then use this data to anticipate how likely you are to spend "a few seconds" commenting, liking, and saving a post. "The more likely you are to take an action, and the more heavily we weigh that action, the higher up you'll see the post," Mosseri explains. In other words, the company wants you to engage with a post as much as possible.
While the Explore tab switches the focus to discoverability, Instagram still tries to predict how likely you are to engage with a photo or video. When it comes to Reels, things are a little different. The idea, according to Instagram, is to surface clips that it thinks you'll find entertaining or engaging. For that reason, Instagram claims that when it comes to Reels, the most vital prediction it attempts to make is whether you'll watch them all the way through.
Shadowbanning is also addressed in the blog post. Unfortunately, Instagram hasn't said much about this other than that it intends to be more open about things. It claims to be working on a "better" in-app notification that will explain why one of their postings was taken down.
The company suggests a few things if you want more control over your Instagram experience. To begin, it states that you should choose your closest buddies for Stories. Not only will you be able to limit who sees your Stories, but their photos and videos will also be prioritised. If you don't want to view their posts, you can also mute (or unfollow) them. Also, if you want to modify what you see elsewhere, press the "Not Interested" button.
No comments yet