Instagram Algo Now Prioritizes Original Content Over Aggregators

Instagram is finally doing something about the content aggregators and outright thieves that have overtaken your feeds. It’s about damn time.

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.

And they’re going one better. They’re actually replacing stolen content with the originals.

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.

Good.