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Instagram will let you rebuild your recommendations from scratch

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I nstagram users can soon clear and make a fresh start on the content that’s recommended to them. | Image: Meta Instagram is testing a new feature that will let users completely refresh the content that’s recommended to them on the platform. The recommendations reset feature will “soon roll out globally,” according to Meta’s announcement , and can be used to clear the algorithmic content that currently appears in Feeds, Explore, and Reels. The new feature will be available to users of all ages, including Teen accounts. “We want to make sure everyone on Instagram – especially teens – has safe, positive, age-appropriate experiences and feels the time they’re spending on Instagram is valuable,” Meta said. “We want to give teens new ways to shape their Instagram experience, so it can continue to reflect their passions and interests as they evolve.” GIF: Meta This is how users will access the reset feature once it rolls out. Recommendat
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Threads is testing custom feeds for your favorite topics

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Image: The Verge Threads is testing a way to create custom feeds for certain profiles or topics, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced on Friday. The upcoming feature should make it easier to keep tabs on different interests, such as your favorite sports team or even technology-related news. It sounds similar to the custom feeds feature Bluesky rolled out last year — but Threads’ version seems a lot simpler. To create a custom feed, just search and tap into a topic. From there, select the three-dot icon beside the search term and choose “create new feed.” GIF: Meta You can create feeds that track soccer or men’s fashion. You can also add profiles to your custom feed by selecting the three-dot icon above someone’s profile photo and tapping “add to feed.” Threads will then let you choose which feed you’d like to add the profile to. Your custom feeds will then appear in the same main menu bar as your “For You” and “Following” tabs. Th
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Meta must face FTC trial that could separate Instagram and WhatsApp

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Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge Meta must face the Federal Trade Commission’s antitrust lawsuit that accuses the company of dominating the social media industry through its acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp, a DC District Court Judge ruled on Wednesday . The FTC filed a lawsuit against Meta in 2020, alleging the company bought up rivals — Instagram and WhatsApp — in an attempt to stifle competition. Judge James Boasberg initially dismissed the FTC’s lawsuit in 2021 , but the agency filed an amended complaint, which he ultimately let proceed . Meta once again asked the court to dismiss the FTC’s case in April. Boasberg has now ruled largely in favor of the FTC, though he dismissed a claim that Meta acted anticompetitively by preventing developers from accessing its API unless they agreed not to compete with its apps. In a statement to The Verge , Meta spokesperson Christopher Sgro said the company is “confident” the trial will show its acquis
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The hunt for the next Twitter: all the news about alternative social media platforms

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Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge Where will we all hang out next? It’s been more than two years since Elon Musk officially took over as the owner of Twitter — now X — and while a lot of platforms rushed in to try and be the next big microblogging service, many haven’t survived. Threads, Mastodon, and Bluesky have all proven to be viable alternatives, but places like Pebble (formerly T2) and Post News didn’t make it. Threads is perhaps the likely successor, having reached 275 million monthly users as of October 2024, and it seems committed to fediverse integration by building features around the ActivityPub protocol. Bluesky, which relies on its own decentralized AT Protocol for social networking, continues to grow and saw a surge of users after the 2024 election, though with somewhere north of 14.5 million use rs , it’s still well behind Threads. Mastodon, which also uses the ActivityPub protocol, was already well-established by the time Musk bough
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Instagram stops the ‘rug pull’ that disappears videos while you’re watching them

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Image: Kristen Radtke / The Verge You know that thing where, just after you’ve opened Instagram and become invested in whatever video was already loaded, a new video pops in and seemingly yeets the old video into the void, never to be seen again? That’s a thing of the past, according to Instagram boss Adam Mosseri, who says in an AMA from his Instagram Story yesterday that the app now waits for you to scroll to show you the new stuff. That behavior — which Instagram apparently called “rug pull” internally — wasn’t just some weird bug. Mosseri says the app did it “because we were trying to load new content, and it was taking a while, so we showed you something that was already downloaded in the meantime, and it is generally good for engagement.” But that’s “really annoying,” he acknowledges, “so we stopped doing it.” Instagram has taken “a little bit of an engagement hit for this,” Mosseri concludes, saying it’s a much better experience for those of us u
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The Verge’s favorite social networks

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Image: Alex Parkin / The Verge Social networking has become more disconnected, to say the least. Two years ago, Elon Musk began transforming Twitter into what is now X, and the ensuing chaos drove a lot of former users elsewhere — elsewhere being several places, including Threads, Bluesky, Mastodon, and even Facebook or Instagram. We were curious as to where our staff members were going for their social networking fix these days — or whether they had given up on it altogether. Here are some of their answers. I just don’t think any single platform is going to be the one-stop shop that Twitter once was Jay Peters, news editor I primarily use microblogging social networks, and I bounce between many of them because 1) I need to for my job and 2) because none has really risen to become the One Central Place that Twitter used to be. X is awful now, but I need to use it to keep tabs on Elon Musk and the various companies that still post news on the platform fir
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Instagram saves the best video quality for the most popular content

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Image: Kristen Radtke / The Verge Ever wondered why some of your Instagram videos tend to look blurry, while others are crisp and sharp? It’s because, on Instagram, the quality of your video apparently depends on how many views it’s getting. That’s according to a video AMA from Instagram head Adam Mosseri, in which he explained why some videos are lower-quality than others. Here’s part of Mosseri’s explanation, from the video, which was reposted by a Threads user today: In general, we want to show the highest-quality video we can ... But if something isn’t watched for a long time — because the vast majority of views are in the beginning — we will move to a lower quality video. And then if it’s watched again a lot then we’ll re-render the higher quality video. He continues, adding that the platform does this in order to “show people the highest-quality content we can.” Instagram devotes more resources to videos from “creators who drive more views,” Moss
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