As more and more governments try and form laws that hold social media platforms accountable for their misgivings in privacy and transparency, we're beginning to see some of these social media juggernauts come out and offer more insight into how their algorithms work.

Facebook-owned Instagram has now published a blog post, directly addressing some of the algorithmic misconcenceptions we've had for years. Adam Mosseri, the Head of Instagram, authors this post himself, underlining that in order to trust something, you need to know how it works and while that's spot on, I'm a little surprised it took us so long to get on the same page.

 
Firstly, Mosseri addresses a common misconception that a single all-encompassing algorithm that monitors what people see and don’t see on Instagram, and he says the platform uses a variety of different algorithms that each have their own function and task in organizing the content you visualize. When Instagram started off in 2010, the platform showed you photos in chronological order, which, over time, proved impossible to maintain with the sheer number of users the platform saw over time.

Then the company then came up with a way to show you the most relevant posts. Mosseri claims that each distinct part of the app, i.e, the Feed, Explore and Reels, use their own set of algorithms to determine the content that’s the most relevant to its users. The blog post gives an example that people look for their closest friends in Stories, but in Explore, they want something new and interesting.

Each post on Instagram is apparently ranked based on information the app extracts about it. The most important one is the popularity of a post; however, your recent activity and history of interacting with someone also plays a role in this. The likelihood of you liking or saving the post, or commenting on it also plays a significant role.

In the ‘Explore’ section, although the focus is different, Instagram tries to predict what you may like and show you posts that you might engage with.

In the ‘Reels’ section, things are a bit different. Instagram will show you clips it determines you may find funny or interesting, and it tries to determine Reels you will watch to the end.

Mosseri also addresses 'shadowbanning' in the blog post. In case you we're wondering, that's a word people use when they feel Instagram is "silencing" them or when they feel they're being selectively victimised.

Adam Mosseri states that there’s no way Instagram can guarantee you can constantly get the same level of interaction with your posts and he underlines some people look at half of their Feed.

However, he does state Instagram is working on improving the transparency of, for example, why certain posts have been deleted, and he says that in the future, there will be improved notifications on these topics.

Mosseri finishes by saying that you can influence what you see by picking your closest friends, muting people you’re not interested in, and mark recommended posts as “Not Interested.”