Instagram will tell creators if their posts are blocked from being recommended

The Instagram icon is featured in the middle of a background filled with pink, orange, and purple shapes.
Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge

Instagram will now tell you if your posts are too edgy to be recommended to other users. Creators and businesses will be able to see if their posts are being blocked from appearing in certain parts of the app, Instagram head Adam Mosseri announced today.

In the settings menu, under account and then account status, professional accounts can now check to see if any of their posts are banned from being recommended to users who don’t follow them. Recommendations appear in places like the Explore page and home feed and have become increasingly central to the platform as parent company Meta attempts to take on TikTok. By the end of 2023, Meta plans to more than double the amount of recommended content users see on their feeds.

In order to be eligible to appear on Explore and other places, Instagram posts must follow community guidelines and rules around recommended content: users can post content depicting violence, like a fight, for example, but it may be blocked from being suggested to other users. Creators and businesses will be able to edit, delete, or appeal Instagram’s decision on posts flagged as being ineligible for recommendations.

The updates to the account status page will likely hit a nerve with creators who have suspected the platform was suppressing certain content — sometimes referred to as “shadowbanning.” The new feature will at least give more clarity for people and companies that notice a drop in reach and offer one explanation as to why they aren’t getting in front of as many users.



* This article was originally published here

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