Instagram reveals new updates to users' control of content material
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The social media platform is stepping up to new upgrades after its users expressed anger with the recent and continuous updates to the platform.
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Meta's Instagram platform (Reuters)
Instagram has revealed that testing is taking its course for developing new settings for users to control what kind of content they see on the social media platform.
In a blog post, Meta stated they are testing the ability to select multiple posts and mark them through the “not interested” button, which is supposed to flag to the app that a user doesn’t want to see similar content. As of now, Instagram users can click on a single post to flag it, but there’s no way to do that through multiple ones.
Instagram disclosed that it will also begin experimenting with how users can make a list of keywords, phrases, emojis, and hashtags in recommended posts they’re not interested in and don’t want to see on their feed. In June, the platform TikTok released a similar keyword-based feature, giving users the ability to “dislike” videos that would help direct their algorithm towards more of what they want to see.
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The new steps taken by Instagram come after users objected to the consecutive changes piling up on the platform. Besides the flood of Reels, many Instagram users were angered by the amount of "recommended" content appearing on their feeds from accounts they don’t follow, a matter that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has announced will only increase going forward.
Instagram already offers a few ways to cater to users' feeds, like snoozing suggested posts for 30 days and a “Favorites” list to add other users to so that posts from those accounts don’t get buried. The "Explore" page has settings to manage your algorithm and Meta is switching to focus more on discovery since it would amp up the competition with TikTok.
In the first quarter of 2022, findings showed that worldwide app installations reached nearly 37 billion on the #AppStore and #Google Play, with #TikTok exceeding 3.5 billion all-time downloads.
— Al Mayadeen English (@MayadeenEnglish) July 17, 2022
What app do you spend the most time on? pic.twitter.com/Ye5og09wNF
