“Make Instagram Instagram again”. There is an infographic in which, these days, it is hard not to come across if you take a ride on Meta’s social network. White background, a clear sentence in the center: “Make Instagram, Instagram again. Just be TikTok, we want to see cute photos of our friends ”. Everyone is protesting against the direction taken by the platform: fewer photos, all about short videos and content from profiles that the user does not follow in the main feed.
A dynamic that is not new, every time a platform changes something: users complain, but then in the end everything goes quiet. This time it looks different. This time, influencers, like the sisters, are also taking the field Kim Kardashian e Kylie Jenner, which together are able to amass over 660 million followers. So much the noise generated by the protests of ordinary and famous users, that it was even necessary to intervene Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri. In a video (of course, a reel), the platform number 1 explained the change underway.
Social network
Everyone wants to be TikTok, and maybe YouTube has (almost) made it
by Emanuele Capone
“We are experimenting with a series of changes to the application, such as the full-screen feed, but at the moment of testing, they can certainly be improved ”, explained Mosseri. But he could not deny the direction of the platform: “I want to be clear, we will continue to support the photos because they are part of our identity – he said – Having said that, I have to be honest: I believe that more and more videos will be the focus of Instagram. And this is already happening, regardless of what we do. “
Mosseri’s reasoning is clear, acceptable or not. They are testing some solutions (like full screen feed) but there is little we can do: Instagram will become more and more like TikTok, paradoxically because it is the behavior of users that demand this evolution. What is certain is that it seems credible to think that these habits may have been influenced by the algorithm itself of the platform, which for months has been rewarding short videos on photos, which are distributed to an ever smaller number of users.
Same reasoning about recommendations: For some time now, Instagram has been suggesting posts to users from profiles they don’t follow, on the style of the For You section of TikTok. Also on this aspect, Mosseri explained how the attempt is simply to propose new interesting contents and to help creators to reach a higher number of users. He also made it clear that it is possible to mute the suggestions or use alternative feeds, as we explained on Italian Tech.
The explanations of the number 1 of Instagram have not lowered the tone of the controversy. Users keep complaining the tiktokization process of the platform. Of particular concern are the transition from photos to videos, for an app that started out as a digital Polaroid, and the proposal of content from profiles not followed. Parodies of Mosseri’s intervention have also started circulating, like the one below, which is particularly funny.
Tutorial
Re-tuning algorithms: a practical guide to resetting our digital life
by Francesco Marino
The dawn of the new social networks
The move by Instagram represents the confirmation of an evolution in the world of social networks, driven by the TikTok model (we also wrote about it here) and confirmed by Mosseri himself. As pointed out also from the report of the Hi-Tech Observatory of SWG and Italian Tech of last March, people are increasingly using social platforms for entertainment purposes. It is for this reason that Instagram (like Facebook, which decides to separate feeds between creators and friends) invests in this aspect, that is, in providing interesting content to people, regardless of relationships. For the affections and for the interactions, more and more we turn to dedicated private spaces, such as WhatsApp, Telegram or Discordwhich will increasingly be the platforms we will use to manage our social relationships.