Instagram's New Updates

Head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri has dropped the latest round of Instagram updates, and we’re breaking them down for you today. Spoiler alert, it’s a big win for original content creators.

The platform will now be promoting original content, which is great news for creators, but bad news for meme pages. The algorithm will decrease the reach on accounts that only share or repost content from other creators, or claim others’ content as their own. 

Content from the original creator will be prioritised and have better reach, whereas meme pages that only share other people’s content without adding anything else will find their posts are shown only to followers. 

The phrase “quality over quantity” springs to mind, as those pages that churn out numerous reposted videos a day will find themselves further down the ranking for recommended videos whereas content from the OG creator will boosted to the top of the list. 

If Instagram finds two pieces of identical content, it will only recommend the original piece, to cut down on copycats and give more platform to the OGs. 

These changes will mainly apply to the areas where content is recommended, so, in-feed recommendations, Reels and the explore page, so content will not be restricted to existing followers.

Similar to TikTok's reposted sticker in bottom left-hand corner of videos, Instagram will also add stickers to posts to show the content has been reshared so the audience will be aware it’s not the original content. 

It’s important to note that if the copied content that has been edited and Instagram deems this as adding value to it, so it will not be penalised, as it’s not a direct rip of the original content. 

Adam Mosseri called this a spicy topic and there’s definitely room for debate here, some owners of meme accounts are NOT happy with these changes whereas smaller content creators who are tired of their posts being ripped off, are thrilled. As much as we love memes, it’s a really big win for original content creators, so we hope this will be a positive change for the app! 

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