Instagram tests and highlights new features to control content suggestions

So, the latest is that Instagram has highlighted some features that will facilitate a more delightful experience. Moreover, they are also working on new features for the same.

This will actually make it easier for the users to get more control of what is shown up on their app. With that, they will get suggestions for similar posts based only on their liking and preferences.

Beginning with the upcoming tools, Meta reports that Instagram is testing the ability to mark multiple posts in the ‘Explore’ as ‘Not Interested’.

It will help filter out all the ‘not so relevant’ posts for you.

Other than that, the company will also soon start working on the ability to tell Instagram that you do not wish to see suggested posts with specific words, phrases, or emojis in the caption or hashtags.

It will make Instagram more personalized and helpful for the users, allowing the platform to understand what interests a user more.

Moving on, Instagram has also given some tips on how you can streamline your Instagram Experience. As the company describes how the suggestions feature draws on the machine learning algorithm and your historical usage of the app.

“There are many interactions we take into consideration, but five interactions we look at most closely are how likely you are to spend a few seconds on a post, comment on it, like it, reshare it, and tap on the profile photo.”

“There are a number of ways you can shape your experience on Instagram and see more of what you want on your feed.”

And that is exactly what the company talks about.

Starting with the 1st one, i.e., to use “Favorites and the following” :

‘When you add an account to your Favorites, you’ll see their posts higher and more often.’

‘With Following, you’ll see posts just from the accounts you follow, in chronological order. There are no suggested posts in this view, and you can see the last 30 days of posts.’

Next, the company suggests the use of the “Not Interested” Control:

‘By tapping Not Interested, it removes the post from your feed immediately, and we’ll suggest fewer posts like it in the future.’

Then, you can “Snooze Suggested Posts”: 

‘If you want to take a break from suggested posts, you can easily snooze them for 30 days.’

Finally, you can adjust your ‘Sensitive Content Control’:

‘We recognize that everybody has different preferences, so you can decide to leave things as they are, or you can adjust the Sensitive Content Control to see more or less of some types of sensitive content.’

Thoughts? 

Considering the criticism Instagram got for stuffing users’ news and explore feed with AI recommendations, this is going to be very helpful. At least now, people won’t get annoyed by the forced, random suggestions that they have been receiving. 

However, users will have to manually make efforts to get these recommendations eliminated, and so, most people won’t bother to do that. It calls for the more automated approach for the same.