Instagram has introduced a new feature called “Instagram, Your Algorithm” aimed at personalizing the main feed, allowing users to select topics they wish to see more or less of in their recommendations. Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram, stated that this change is designed to give users greater control over their experience within the app.
In a detailed post on Threads, Mosseri elaborated that enabling users to tailor Instagram to their needs also serves the company’s interests. He remarked, “I believe providing people meaningful control over the products they spend so much time on benefits us as a business.”
Mosseri acknowledged algorithmic recommendations as a technical achievement but noted that they come with a “cost” to individual agency. He highlighted that user interactions with systems have become one-sided, stating, “The system learns from what you tap, watch, and share, but you can’t really tell it what you want.” He believes this dynamic contributes to discomfort with social media, as users feel the experience is imposed rather than shaped by them.
According to Mosseri, the new personalization features were enabled by large language models (LLMs) that make previously incomprehensible algorithms understandable. He expressed that these tools could lead to deeper personalization levels or even a fully customized version of the app in the future.
For a long time, ranking models were built using technologies that were unreadable by humans, Mosseri explained. Now, LLMs can analyze content clusters and describe them in a manner understandable to users. This evolution provides Instagram with a means to show users what the system believes they are interested in and allows users to articulate their actual preferences to the system.
