Put away your six-packs and thong bikini bottoms, ladies and gentlemen.
The days of using your, ahem, assets (whether they’re natural, surgically or virtually enhanced) to grow your Instagram following and increase your rate of engagement are numbered.
Instagram has announced it will start demoting inappropriate content within users’ feeds.
If you’re posting anything sexually suggestive, slightly violent or for shock value the photo-sharing platform’s algorithm will soon prevent other users from coming across the content.
“We have begun reducing the spread of posts that are inappropriate but do not go against Instagram’s Community Guidelines,” Instagram said.
The platform will “push down” or “hide” content it deems to be inappropriate – but not against its guidelines – making it less discoverable to other ‘grammers.
Instagram classified this kind of content as “borderline content.”
It tends to have a higher rate of engagement, which is exactly why some users are inclined to upload slightly inappropriate pictures or videos in order to increase comments and likes on their Insta-account, thereby increasing their rate of engagement.
Think photos gnarly skateboarding accidents or women posing in skimpy bikinis.
According to TechCrunch, the announcement was made during a press event at the company’s Menlo Park headquarters (along with a few other “Integrity” announcements) yesterday.
“As content gets closer and closer to the line of our Community Standards at which point we’d remove it, it actually gets more and more engagement. It’s not something unique to Facebook but inherent in human nature,” Facebook’s Henry Silverman (News Feed Integrity) said.
Currently, there are no guidelines on what Instagram considers borderline content. The only official information Instagram has shared with users is a note posted on its Help Center (and it doesn’t include any examples of what would be deemed inappropriate/borderline content).
What are your thoughts? Let us know in the comments below.
Photo credit: Shutterstock.
