Instagram top man: “We were too focused on video last year”

Instagram was too focused on pushing video last year, says a Meta executive who is responsible for Instagram. Since then, the balance has been somewhat restored, he claims. As a result, posts with photos should do better again.

Mosseri 2022

In a Q&A with users, of which The Verge has published a transcript, Adam Mosseri says the focus was too much on video last year. “There are some photographers who are angry. I want to be clear: while we’ve put more emphasis on video, we value stills.”

He then goes on to say that Instagram has tweaked its algorithm to balance photos and videos more. “I think we focused too much on video in 2022 and pushed the ranking too much, so we showed too many videos and not enough photos. Things like how often someone likes a photo versus a video and how often someone comments on a photo versus a video is about equal now. That’s a good sign that things are more balanced now.”

Mosseri’s words can no longer be found on Instagram itself, because it was a Story that automatically disappears after 24 hours. Instagram received a lot of criticism last year after more and more videos appeared in the feed from accounts that users were not following. With that, Meta presumably wanted to try to make Instagram more like TikTok, a platform that revolves around watching videos from accounts you don’t follow based on interests.