Threads wants to show more posts from followed users in the future
Some thread users are annoyed by inappropriate and too many recommendations in their timeline. The Instagram boss has now announced changes.
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Threads is planning changes to its algorithm and wants to show users more posts from people they actually follow in future. This was announced by Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri in a post. So far, Threads has shown significantly more recommendations compared to other social networks, i.e. posts that the algorithm assumes are of interest to the user.
In reality, however, this also means that users are shown a lot of posts that they are not interested in. This has been a recurring point of criticism in the past. A number of creators and influencers have apparently found out how they can get recommendations to play out their posts widely, for example by encouraging users to like posts. In this way, advertising posts that lead to adult content, for example, also reach users' timelines disproportionately often.
What has helped so far
The current remedy is to switch to the "Followed" timeline, although this is well hidden in the app. Only when users perform a kind of pull-to-refresh do two tabs appear: "For you" and "Followed". In the "Followed" tab, however, only posts from users that you follow – are displayed and you don't have to look at recommendations, the proverbial "outside the box".
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Mosseri announced a remedy on Thursday. The developers are in the process of realigning the ranking to prioritize content from people you follow, he wrote. "This means less recommended content from accounts you don't follow and more posts from accounts you do as of today." To creators, he noted that they will see a change in the extent to which they reach accounts that do not follow them.
Difficult balance
The change is not easy, according to Mosseri: "The balance between the ability to reach followers and general engagement is difficult." The Instagram boss does not give a specific reason for the change. Industry observers suspect that Threads wants to increase its attractiveness, as competitor Bluesky has seen a significant increase in users in recent weeks – Compared to Threads, which recently had 275 million active users per month, Bluesky is still a dwarf , having just passed the 20 million user mark.
(mki)
