GoKawiilAnecdotally, I’ve been hearing for a very long time that Facebook and Instagram users are growing ever more dissatisfied with their social media feeds, and there now appears to be some hard data to support this.
Meta has admitted that its daily active users declined by 20 million this quarter, and the company is taking steps to try to improve the quality of both Facebook and Instagram feeds …
I’m of the Facebook generation, and while the presence of most of my family and friends on the platform mean I can’t really abandon it, I have found a ridiculous level of enshittification of my feed. Roughly every third post is an ad, and much of the rest is “X is interested in Y.”
Other Facebook friends tell me the same thing, and I hear exactly the same story from those who are more of the Instagram generation.
Meta has so far appeared to take its userbase for granted, but The Verge reports that the company has now received a wake-up call.
Meta reported that figures for “Family daily active people” — the term Meta has coined for all collective users of Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, or Messenger — declined by 20 million this quarter compared to the previous three months.
While the company blames this on internet disruptions in Iran as well as WhatsApp restrictions in Russia, I find this as unconvincing as The Verge’s Jess Weatherbed, given the way the company has failed to break out the numbers.
Engadget reports that Meta is also again revamping Instagram’s recommendation algorithm in a belated attempt to boost the quality.
The company is updating its guidelines to prioritize “original content” for photo and carousel posts on Instagram. With the change, accounts that reshare photos or carousels without “material” edits could see their reach throttled. “If your account primarily posts unoriginal reels, photos, or carousels you didn’t create or edit in a material way, your account may not be seen in recommendations to new audiences,” Meta explains
The site says the social network is doing much the same thing on Facebook. Whether either measure makes a discernible difference remains to be seen.
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