Industry News


As Instagram Prioritizes Video, Photographers Petition to Stop Shift

July 29, 2022

By Hillary K. Grigonis

© Koshiro K

Amid complaints over Instagram’s shift to video, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg says that 30 percent of the social media platform’s feed will soon be made up of posts suggested by artificial intelligence. During an earnings call with investors earlier this week, Zuckerberg said that A.I.-generated content will make up 30 percent of the news feed by the end of 2023, twice as much as current users are seeing. The announcement comes after more than a quarter million people have signed a petition asking Instagram to go back to prioritizing photographs.

During the meeting, Zuckerberg said that the company is focused on building a unique recommendation system for text, images, links and group content. While he said that content from followers will remain an important part of the news feed, the amount of bot-suggested content will increase.

[Read: Instagram Allows Nearly Anyone to Tag Products Featured in Posted Posts]

The changes were announced amid user complaints about Instagram’s latest shift towards video. Photographer Tati Bruening created a change.org petition to “Make Instagram Instagram Again,” criticizing the platform’s attempts to be like TikTok and asking to go back to an algorithm that favors photos. The petition gained traction earlier this week when it was shared by Kylie Jenner, the most-followed woman on Instagram with 360 million followers.

However, Meta says it has a reason for pushing through all these changes. During Wednesday’s earnings call, the company shared that it had lost revenue for the first time since becoming a public company. Meta reported a one percent loss in revenue and a 36 percent drop in profit. Zuckerberg said that increasing engagement through more interesting content should help the platform monetize more content.

Instagram’s feed has continually shifted towards video as the social media giant tries to keep up with the growth of TikTok. The petition calls out Reels as “recycled TikToks” and criticizes Instagram for forcing the creators that have built the community to change tactics in order to serve a new algorithm.

[Editor’s Note: As of 8/04/22, Bruening’s petition against Instagram’s shift to video has gotten 292,211 signatures and counting. The photographer is hoping to get to 300,000—when that happens, the petition becomes one of the top signed on Change.org. Feel strongly about this issue? You can sign the petition here.]