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Social Networks

Instagram's New Algorithm That Puts the Best Posts First Goes Live For All (instagram.com) 67

Instagram announced on Friday that it is rolling out its algorithmic feed around the world. The idea is, Facebook-owned photo and video platform says, users will see photos that they are likely to enjoy -- as opposed to seeing what people they follow have posted in reverse-chronological order. The algorithm uses machine learning to create a more personalized feed based on what it thinks you will enjoy more. TechCrunch reports: If you think that sounds a lot like parent company Facebook's News Feed algorithm, you'd be right. As Facebook came to understand long ago, the posts people want to see aren't necessarily those that are the newest. They're those that matter to you, personally. But since most of us aren't on our phones 24/7 -- hey, even the busiest people sleep for a few hours per night! -- we tend to miss posts from our favorite people. This is especially true if you're trying to keep up with friends in other time zones.
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Instagram's New Algorithm That Puts the Best Posts First Goes Live For All

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  • by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 03, 2016 @02:45PM (#52244383)

    Enjoy

  • Ahem (Score:5, Insightful)

    by H3lldr0p ( 40304 ) on Friday June 03, 2016 @02:50PM (#52244421) Homepage

    As someone who constantly changes his FB feed to show the newest (because that's how I find the things I want to know about), I would like to say that it's a giant pain in the ass and that all of the corporations who think they know better than I as to what I want to see and when need to take a long walk off a short pier so they can go soak their head.

    What you are doing is not "curation", it is propaganda. I, for one, am tired of it. And far sooner than you think, this will lose whatever effectiveness it once had. People have a way of becoming immune to it's influence. Learn from Mad Men. You have one chance to change people's minds. Don't squander it on the flavor of the month.

    • by Piata ( 927858 )
      This is exactly why I stopped reading Facebook. I got tired of seeing shitty clickbait articles and "trending" stories about Kim Kardashian or Taylor Swift. These things are not interesting or relevant to me and being constantly bombarded by them just pissed me off. It's unfortunate Instagram is following this trend as what's there works perfectly fine for me as is. I want my feed organized in a manor I deem useful, not one that arranges things by popularity which in my opinion is the most useless metric po
      • I got tired of seeing shitty clickbait articles and "trending" stories about Kim Kardashian or Taylor Swift.

        There's a nifty Chrome extension for that. It's called "FB Purity".

    • by dcw3 ( 649211 )

      I do exactly the same, and hate FB for it (among other things). I know what I want, Leave my fucking settings alone.

    • Facebook Purity will keep that on for you permanently. I would have left Facebook a long time ago if it weren't for that extension. http://www.fbpurity.com/ [fbpurity.com]
    • As someone who constantly changes his FB feed to show the newest...

      You shouldn't have to change anything. Just bookmark https://www.facebook.com/?sk=h_chr [facebook.com].

  • by vanyel ( 28049 )

    I specifically avoid using the News Feed on Facebook because it keeps missing posts from friends. Instead I have a "Following" list with everyone I want on it. It still occasionally misses posts, but it's a lot better than the News Feed. Don't tell me what I want to see, I can skim over the stuff I don't care about - the scroll wheel works very well thankyouverymuch.

    • I have a much better approach: My social life does not revolve around Facebook "friends".

      • by vanyel ( 28049 )

        Neither does mine, but that doesn't mean it's not a useful tool to help in keeping up with non-local friends.

    • by dbIII ( 701233 )
      One of the things that annoyed me enough to drive me away from Facebook a few years ago is they sometimes deliberately drop posts for arbitrary reasons. Several small bands who posted tour dates etc found out the hard way about that policy. Apparently you are supposed to pay if you want all your followers to get all of your posts even if they are asking to see all of your posts - plus you are supposed to work that out yourself without being notified of the dropped posts or that policy by Facebook.
  • If I used Instagram I'd probably be very concerned about this. But alas, my selfie-whoring days are long past, so I think I'll just go have a sandwich and then take a nap.

  • Why do these social media companies insist on telling me what I want and like to see when I visit the site?
    • Why do these social media companies insist on telling me what I want and like to see when I visit the site?

      How else are they going to get you to see, hear, think about and want the things their *actual* customers (advertisers) want to you to see, hear, think about and want? How else are they going to drive social, political and economic issues to their liking?

  • We used to have presentation based on comprehensible, objective metrics.

    Like, "most read", or "highest rated".

    Now, we get "trending". What exactly is "trending"? Apparently, terminology intended to suggest most followed statistically, but wide open to interjection of whatever subjective criteria or advertising profit the site may wish.

    Give me back terms and criteria that mean something. I want my old Internet back.

  • controls the future. who controls the future, controls the past. Jedi mind trick has nothing on NK.
  • The problem is... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by QuietLagoon ( 813062 ) on Friday June 03, 2016 @03:05PM (#52244519)

    ...As Facebook came to understand long ago, the posts people want to see aren't necessarily those that are the newest. They're those that matter to you, personally....

    What if the posts that matter to me, personally, the most are the newest.

    .
    Why doesn't fb's super special algorithm pick that up? Why, when I tell it that I want to see newest posts first (MULTIPLE TIMES!!!), it constantly overrides that directive and shows me stuff in what appears to me to be random order?

    • Facebook lets you browse by newest if you want
      • by _xeno_ ( 155264 )

        No, it doesn't. It acts like it does, but it doesn't. Facebook's timeline is a filtered feed where Facebook filters out "unwanted" posts, and there is absolutely no way to disable that or see what it's filtering.

        Here's a real world example. I "follow" the local NWS branch on Facebook and Twitter. They post weather forecasts and other useful information about upcoming weather events and local weather activity. A while ago, they posted an interesting look at how you could view the increasing greenery across t

  • Sigh. (Score:4, Informative)

    by ledow ( 319597 ) on Friday June 03, 2016 @03:05PM (#52244521) Homepage

    Ah.

    Like Facebook.

    When I constantly switch the fucker back to "Most Recent" and it keeps fucking forgetting.

    Oh, well, another site to avoid because of a stupid change to how it works that wasn't thought through.

    • by jandrese ( 485 )
      You can create a link to Facebook that appends the h_kr part so it always starts in Most Recent mode. Doesn't work on their mobile app though (which buries Most Read down in the interface). Facebook's mobile app is such a hog that you probably shouldn't use it anyway.
  • Worthless! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by darkain ( 749283 ) on Friday June 03, 2016 @03:16PM (#52244591) Homepage

    Since this change went into effect, my company's reach on Instagram has been cut in half. I guess we're just not all that interesting anymore according to their algorithm compared to how interesting we were before to the people that actually saw our content!?

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by QuietLagoon ( 813062 )

      Since this change went into effect, my company's reach on Instagram has been cut in half....

      I'm sure Instagram now will gladly take your advertising dollars, so that the algorithm will place you higher.

      .
      See, it's not worthless, at least not to instagram.

  • I love trying to show comments to friends, only to have them be ordered completely differently for everyone viewing. How does this help anyone?

  • Seeing only the things I am used to seeing?
  • Sort order matters (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Solandri ( 704621 ) on Friday June 03, 2016 @04:16PM (#52245037)
    If the stuff you're seeing is sorted in reverse chronological order, you can browse through it up to the point where you last browsed through it. Then you're done becomes you know you've already seen everything that comes after.

    If the stuff you're seeing is sorted in whatever way some mysterious algorithm thinks you'll find it interesting, you can't stop browsing. An interesting thing that you haven't seen before may be just one more page scroll down, buried among stuff you've already seen. This is like counting marbles by pulling one out of the bag, writing a number, throwing it back into the bag, and pulling out another marble. It's extraordinarily inefficient at finding all the unnumbered marbles, and guarantees you can never know if you've counted them all.

    And what happens if you run across something you really do find interesting, but you have to put your phone down to do other stuff. And between then and the next time you're able to browse the algorithm has updated what it thinks your preferences are? You can't reproduce the previous sort order. So now it's like a magazine, where the pages can randomly rearrange their order while you're in the middle of browsing through it.
    • by Anonymous Coward

      This is exactly what I was thinking they are doing. So it makes you spend more time sifting through things you have already read. It is ultimately turning your brain to mush.

    • by Anonymous Coward

      Correct. Except for one point, which is that the currently most expensive ad is now at the top of the feed, so everyone will see it.

    • by Anonymous Coward

      which is why you should just stop checking.

  • This is not a kindly little old service that helps you find things that are important to you.

    This is an extremely malicious program to shape your point of view by enticing you with items that are scientifically proven to stimulate you and then associating those items with other items that promote an agenda that is against your interests.

    This is literally some faceless entity telling you to your face that it has the power to decide what you like and that you will agree.
    What is to stop them from inserting sug

  • Worst thing to happen to instagram. I follow people for a reason.
  • when you try not to miss anything. You're always searching, which posts are still unread, because the timeline always tries to resort it, without actually knowing what you've seen but not clicked.

"I've seen it. It's rubbish." -- Marvin the Paranoid Android

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