Instagram Gives Users Control Over Feed Algorithm

Instagram is expanding its algorithm personalisation features to the feed or home page. With this update, users can adjust which topics or content they want to see more or less of within their recommendations.

Instagram Head, Adam Mosseri, stated that this change is intended to give users control over their experience within the application. According to him, providing the freedom to customise the experience on the platform is beneficial for both users and businesses.

“I believe that this is part of the business. By empowering users to shape Instagram into something that suits them, they can have more control over the product they use,” said Mosseri, as reported by Engadget on Thursday (11/06/2026).

However, this new feature has limitations. Personalisation only applies to interest-based categories, such as “rescue dogs” or “parenting humour”. When attempting to request that the feed display posts specifically from followed accounts, the system displays a “no results found” error message. This means that users cannot yet increase the priority of content from accounts they follow through this specific feature.

This has become a sensitive issue for creators and businesses on the platform. Mosseri himself is frequently asked why creator posts do not always reach all of their followers. According to Mosseri, the list of followed accounts is no longer the primary way to shape a user’s feed.

He explained that changes in user behaviour are a factor, as much interaction has now shifted to Stories and Direct Messages (DM). Consequently, the recommendation system is viewed as a solution to fill the content or interaction gap in the feed.

Nevertheless, Instagram has emphasised that it will not remove the recommendation system from the main feed. The application continues to provide a dedicated “Following” tab for users who wish to see posts from the accounts they follow directly.