Instagram is giving users more options to control what they see on their feed after weeks of backlash over the app’s changing algorithm over suggested posts.
The Meta-owned app announced that it tested two new features users could use to control their explore pages. The first feature is the ability to mark several posts on the explore page and mark them with the ‘Not Interested’ option. The company is also testing the ability of users to filter out posts that contain specific words, phrases, or emojis in the caption or hashtag.
“It’s important to us that people feel good about the time they spend on Instagram, so we’ll continue to work on ways to give people more control over what they see,” Meta said in a blog post.
While users could choose the ‘Not Interested’ before, they had to mark each post one at a time. The ability to filter out posts based on phrases, emojis, and words from their explore pages will also allow users to completely cut off content that they don’t like from showing up.
The company had been facing backlash over the increase in suggested posts in users’ feeds, a change that forced the company to roll back. Adam Mosseri, Head of Instagram, had stated in response that the company would dial down the number of suggested posts in feeds. At the same time, Instagram improved at showing people the positions they were interested in.
In its blog, Meta also highlighted other tools users have to control what they see in their explore pages and feeds. These tools include using the ‘Following’ and ‘Favourites’ options to control what shows up in their feed, using the ‘Not Interested’ option on posts, snoozing suggested positions, and tuning sensitive content filters.
