Instagram is changing its approach to content recommendations: How will the application help promote original content and fight reposters?

Instagram is preparing for major changes to its content recommendation algorithm: the app will now focus more on original content, combating so-called serial reposters who copy other users’ materials without proper attribution, and expanding the audience of small accounts.

The changes will primarily affect accounts that repost materials from other users. Sometimes such aggregators indicate the authorship of the published content, but the material itself is often copied without any acknowledgment. Re-posted content will now be removed from recommendations on the platform. First of all, this change will affect accounts that often publish other people's materials. Often - this is more than 10 times in 30 days. Content from such accounts will no longer appear on the Explore page. However, they will have a chance to return to the recommendations page 30 days after the last publication of “non-original” content.

Moreover, in the recommendations, content from such aggregators will be replaced with original content if the material is “relatively new” and if the platform is convinced that the publications are identical.

It should be noted that these changes will affect only recommendations: users subscribed to aggregates will still see their reposts both in their feed and in the profile of these accounts. In addition, the system will also begin to add tags indicating the original content creator, although these tags can be removed.

On the one hand, these measures can indeed help in the fight against serial reposters and “content factories.” On the other hand, people who publish infographics, celebrity fan pages, and others may also suffer because of them.

The new recommendation engine algorithm could also “give all authors an equal chance of breakthrough.” Whereas in the past, recommendation pages were built based on user interaction with posts, and therefore accounts with a large number of followers received the greatest reach, now people will also be offered content that may be interesting to them, regardless of how many subscribers the author of this content has.

These changes are expected to take effect in the coming months and will have a significant impact on the dynamics of content and its perception on the platform.