Instagram explained how the recommendation system works in an effort to clear up “misunderstandings” about how the app’s algorithm works and whether the company has “shadow banned” certain creators. In a new blog post, Instagram’s senior executive Adam Mosseri offers one of the most detailed explanations to date of how he ranks content in various parts of the app.
Instagram users have long theorized about how the “algorithm” works to rank content on the platform and why some users’ posts are less visible than others. Now that mystery is gone.
Stories, Discover and Reels recommendations
According to the published blog post, Instagram divides its ranking system based on where content is encountered: Stories, Discover page, and Reels.
Stories are ranked, in part, by how often a user views an account’s updates, sends a DM, or interacts with a Story by liking it. Instagram also tries to assess your relationship with an account, such as whether a person is a family member or friend.
Similar user data is used for reels. In Reels, Instagram collects information about what the next content will be based on what the user likes, saves, shares or interacts with. But these are not all the basics of content seen in Reels. Instagram is also looking at whether a user reshares the video, watches the entire content, likes it, and clicks on the audio page. In addition to the images and sounds used in the videos, information about the person sharing the video, such as followers or engagement levels, also plays a role in the Reels ranking.
On the other hand, recommendations in Discover are largely based on posts you’ve liked, saved, shared, and commented on in the past. However, in this section, naturally, you are more likely to see accounts that you have never interacted with before.
Restricted accounts
The most interesting parts of the blog post are those under the heading “shadowban” or “shadowban.” Mosseri says there’s no universal definition of the word, but many creators “use the term to imply that a user’s account or content is restricted or hidden without a clear explanation or justification.” Instagram says it’s trying to increase transparency to address these concerns from creators.
For this, attention is drawn to the “account status” feature of the application. The feature can warn users that one of their posts or their account is “not eligible” for recommendations. Again, appeal processes can be started from here.
Finally, platforms offer users a variety of ways to control what they see. Meta offers “show more” and “show less” options as a way for users to react to certain types of content on Facebook. On Instagram, on the other hand, the option “I’m not interested” is offered. But whether these tools actually work is debatable. Some studies suggest that user settings don’t do much for fine-tuning a recommendation system.
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