Your Instagram feed might soon be less dominated by reposted videos and screenshots of old tweets.
What happened: Instagram made a bunch of changes to its recommendation algorithm, the biggest of which is penalizing “aggregator” accounts that repost content from other users and websites, often without credit.
- The change impacts accounts that post unoriginal content more than 10 times in 30 days, though it won’t apply to accounts with licensing or resharing agreements.
- When possible, Instagram will also replace the aggregated content with the original post in its recommendations.
Catch-up: Aggregators have been irritating Instagrammers for ages, but Reels made the problem worse. Content creators have obviously been frustrated by their content getting reused, while users get annoyed by how they make the app feel spammy.
- Instagram has struggled to compete with TikTok not just because its algorithm is seen to be inferior, but because it hasn’t drawn in creators, especially ones making videos.
Why it matters: This will change the user experience and creator economy on Instagram. Rewarding original content might attract creators and stem growing complaints about engagement on the platform.
- Even if a TikTok ban happens, some creators would rather try their luck on a new app than go through the “humiliation ritual” of posting on Instagram.
Zoom out: In April, Meta launched a new version of its AI model and rolled it out across apps, including Instagram. But it has thus far been filled with spam, a problem that extends to Facebook and the bizarre AI-created engagement bait that is gaming that site’s algorithm.