Instagram's updated algorithm prioritizes original content instead of rip-offs

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Instagram is making significant changes to how its system recommends content, with a focus on original content and increased distribution for smaller accounts. The slew of changes were announced by the company in a blog post today.

The biggest change deals with aggregators — accounts that download or screenshot other users' videos and photos and repost them. Sometimes aggregators will credit the original poster by tagging them in the post or caption, but often, content is wholesale ripped off with no acknowledgment, and engagement is siphoned off from the person who created the content in the first place.

Instagram clearly has a problem with this and will begin removing reposted content from recommendations across the platform. The update targets serial reposters — accounts that share content that they didn't "create or enhance in a material way" more than 10 times in 30 days. This means that, in theory, your Instagram Explore page or main feed recommendations won't include content from aggregation accounts. Affected accounts can become eligible again for recommendations 30 days after the last time they reposted "unoriginal" content. This won't affect "a set of publishers" identified by Instagram with licensing agreements or resharing permissions from content creators, according to the blog post.

Instagram is going a step further than just cutting off repost accounts: the platform will replace the reposted content with the original creator's post in recommendations. The company says it will only replace reposts when the original is "relatively new" and when the system is confident that the posts are identical "based on audio and visual signals." Creators will get a notification when their original content takes the place of reposts and is recommended on the platform. These changes only apply to recommendations — if you follow an aggregation account, you'll still see their reposted content on their profile or in feeds.

Instagram will also begin adding a label crediting the original creator — though both the original creator and the account reposting the photo or video will be able to remove the label.

Image: Instagram

The penalizing of aggregator accounts is likely to be far reaching, beyond the content mill-type accounts stealing memes or images. Individuals regularly reposting infographics from organizations could get dinged, as well as things like celebrity fan pages or accounts collecting inspiration pictures from a range of sources on Instagram. Reposting on Instagram is so common practice that there are entire apps dedicated to this — but users might think twice going forward, knowing it could block their accounts from discovery features.

Instagram today also announced its recommendation system will be updated "to give all creators an equal chance of breaking through" via a new ranking algorithm.

"Previously, in surfaces with recommended content, reels were ranked primarily based on how an account's followers engaged with them," the company wrote in the blog post. "This meant that accounts with the largest followings often saw the most reach."

To counteract this and give smaller accounts an equal chance, Instagram describes a system that essentially sounds like a series of beta tests that all eligible content will go through: the recommendation system will show a piece of content to a small audience that may be interested in it, whether they follow the creator or not. The top performing Reels in that group will then be served up to a wider audience, where the process will repeat. It will be interesting to see if this might create the "anyone can go viral" phenomenon on Instagram — in other words, part of what's made TikTok so appealing for wannabe influencers.

Instagram says this change will roll out over the coming months.

Image: Instagram

Reach and engagement on Instagram have been a contentious topic for years as Meta has leaned more into Reels and recommendations — the onslaught of content you see from accounts you don't follow. On Threads, Instagram head Adam Mosseri can regularly be seen trying to explain to frustrated creators how Instagram ranks and serves content or why so few of their followers see what they post. These updates don't specifically target this problem, though — in fact, the emphasis on recommendations updates seems to suggest that it will be even more important going forward.