This week, Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, posted a video on Twitter (yes, the irony) to tell people that Instagram will “continue to support photos” because a lot of people have been complaining about how random videos are being pushed into their feeds. But Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, has pretty much confirmed that Instagram’s feed is about to get worse.
My Instagram feed is getting worse
For many Instagram users, the experience of using the social network that was mostly about photos of friends and family has gotten a lot worse in recent months. Instagram now uses algorithms to show you feed content from accounts you don’t follow but that it thinks you might find interesting.
And you are probably wrong if you think that Instagram will change its strategy for the better because of these complaints. During a Wednesday call with investors, Zuckerberg said that the company plans to “more than double” the amount of AI-recommended content in Instagram feeds. In other words, you’ll see more posts from accounts and people you don’t know.
The CEO of Meta says that about 15% of what Instagram user sees in their feed are recommendations. This number should go up to more than 30 percent by the end of next year. Instagram users have been asking for the opposite, but the company doesn’t seem to care.
Instagram shouldn’t try to be as popular as TikTok.
The situation with Instagram is so complicated right now that even Kylie Jenner and Kim Kardashian asked Instagram to “stop trying to be TikTok.” Adam Mosseri then responded to the complaints with a video that basically said that the company would keep spending money to copy features from TikTok.
This move makes sense since Facebook and Instagram haven’t grown as much as TikTok has. Meta’s Q2 FY2022 results came in slightly lower than expected with revenue of $28.82 billion instead of $28.94 billion. The company has 1.97 billion users who use it every day, which is still a lot.
During the call, Meta executives also said that, in response to Apple’s App Tracking Transparency, the company has been working on new ways to deliver online ads that use less information about users. Zuckerberg had already said earlier this year that Meta was changing how its ads were set up to focus on iOS users.
Meta’s stock has dropped more than 3% since the announcement, which shows that investors aren’t happy with where the company is going.
What do you think about everything that has happened? Did you like it better when there were no suggestions on your Instagram feed? Tell us in the comments section below.
