Instagram changes its ranking to favor original content

Instagram is making some new creator-focused changes to its platform, which Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri said are “intended to ensure that credit goes to those who deserve it.”

The new stuff consists of three changes: product tags are now available to everyone, allowing you to tag a product in your post; You can assign yourself a category like “photographer” or “rapper” and have that category displayed every time you’re tagged in a post; and Instagram will begin promoting more original content on the platform.

“If you create something from scratch,” Mosseri said in a video explaining the new features, “you should get more credit than if you share something you found from someone else.” We will try to do more to give more credit to original content, especially compared to reposted content.” Appreciating original content is nothing new, of course, but Mosseri said Instagram will be leaning more in that direction.

Translation? Please please please stop posting only your favorite TikToks on Reels. We request.

Meta has made it clear that going forward it sees Facebook and Instagram as creator-centric platforms rather than tools for people to connect with their friends. So both platforms have invested in shopping tools, ways for developers to build an audience, and many other things that they hope will entice developers to stop being TikTokers and YouTubers and instead be Instagrammers and Facebookers to become.

roles, in particular is the focus of these efforts. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg called the short-form videos “our fastest growing content format by far‘, and they’re available now on Facebook and Instagram. But anyone who uses Reels knows that it can feel like a TikTok clone, often with the same content that was just reposted – TikTok logo and all – from somewhere else. A way for Instagram to discourage this practice? Bury it in the rankings. And that’s exactly what Mosseri seems to be planning.

As for how Instagram will determine what counts as original, Mosseri said only that it’s difficult and “we’ll repeat it over time.” The change is likely to pose a major problem for aggregator accounts, many of which are very popular sources of memes and trends but are often accused of stealing content and credit from creators. “As we rely more on recommendations, it becomes increasingly important that we don’t overvalue aggregators,” Mosseri tweeted, “as that would be bad for creators and therefore bad for Instagram in the long run.”

The push for original content on Meta’s social products is nothing new, as is the fact that the most popular content is on Facebook and Instagram tends to be plagiarized. Meta’s platforms have the largest audiences, but TikTok, Twitter, and others are usually where new memes and trends spring from. If Instagram and Facebook want to be successful creator platforms, they need to find a way to reverse that. And starting to turn its most powerful knob — the ranking algorithm that decides what billions of people watch every day — is a pretty serious first step. Another idea would be to pay the creators more, but given that meta seems to be Reels Payouts Reductionthat may not come so quickly.