- Instagram is giving you access to its algorithm
- For now, it’s just reels
- You can even share what you learn about your interests.
Some describe social media algorithms as black boxes, dark spaces that have substantial control over what you see but offer virtually no insight into how they work their dark magic. Instagram is changing that equation today by opening up just a bit of the inscrutable programming and letting users, with the help of AI, take the wheel.
Instagram announced the “new way to control your Instagram experience” in a blog post on Wednesday (December 10), explaining that the change will allow users to view and control their Reels algorithm.
Reels is the longest form video content and is most similar to TikTok, another social media platform with a powerful and inscrutable algorithm.
Don’t worry, when you see the icon to access the new algorithm (two lines with hearts), you won’t be looking at the code. Instead, by using AI in ways it doesn’t explain, Instagram shows you what it understands about your interests. What you watch most or for the longest, what you like, what you share, and even what you swipe through shape the Reels algorithm. That detail, your interests, will now appear in the topic summary list at the top.
However, this is where it gets interesting; You can now modify your algorithm, entering topics you want to see more of, as well as those you’d prefer to remove from your feed.
Instagram promises that “your Reels will reflect your choices.”
Perhaps even more surprising is that Instagram will let you share your algorithm, or at least the interests you like, in a Story post.
When I first heard about this, I laughed out loud, as there are more than a few memes about the dangers of, say, your spouse or partner seeing what your algorithm reveals about you.
Access to the Reels algorithm is, apparently, just the beginning. Instagram promised to bring the feature to Explore “and more places in the app, soon,” which we understand means you’ll eventually have access to your entire Instagram algorithm.
Why now?
After years of criticism that Meta and Instagram have not done enough to protect their users (especially teens) from harmful content, Instagram has taken a much more aggressive approach to content control. Most of it has been on the side of parental controls. However, this is the first big step in truly putting control in the hands of users.
Most people scratch their heads and wonder why certain things appear in their feeds while other topics don’t. This may lift that veil of confusion, but also reveal how Instagram has been watching us. People’s Reels feeds should become much more curated and perhaps end up feeling like safer spaces.
I’m curious how this might affect advertising, since we all know how an in-person conversation with a friend or family member about a possible trip to Paris almost immediately results in Paris videos in our feed (this isn’t alchemy; the friend has probably searched Instagram or Facebook about Paris and since you’re logged in, well, your feeds are infected with Viva La France). Maybe now you can go to your algorithm center and remove that Paris topic before the total feed infection.
Instagram is likely doing this as well to help bring people back to Instagram. There are some signs that Generation Alpha, the next target market, is abandoning social media. Maybe changes like this (real control of algorithms) will help bring them back.
This could also put some pressure on other social media companies like X (formerly Twitter) and especially TikTok (which is assumed to soon be owned and controlled by the United States) to make their algorithms publicly accessible and curable.
Instagram says Reels algorithm monitoring is rolling out in the US today and will soon roll out globally (for English-speaking markets).
Check it out and let us know your thoughts (and your discoveries about wild algorithms) in the comments below.
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