Instagram denies the claim that it hides posts from users

Instagram was forced to respond when its feed algorithm was under attack once again; with users claiming that the site’s algorithm has resulted in their posts being seen by only a fraction of their followers, 7 percent to be precise. Instagram took to Twitter to deny the claims saying, “We never hide posts from people you’re following.”

A number of posts have surfaced on Instagram claiming that, much like Facebook, Instagram also hides most posts from followers and only 7 percent of Instagram followers see a user’s posts. These claims have been floating around on Pinterest, Facebook, and Instagram since the beginning of 2018 but it had just recently gained more recognition, accumulating thousands of likes.

These posts have been circulating on the photo-messaging application for quite some time now and they typically start the message with ‘This is a test’. They further read, “Instagram has been limiting our posts. So, no more than 7 percent of our followers see them. Sad but true- if you see this post, please simply like it and comment “YES.”

People posting these messages are normally associated with some small businesses and claim that this would somewhat improve their ranking and Instagram will start showing their posts to the followers.

Instagram in a series of tweets explained that these posts aren’t true, “We have not made any recent changes to feed ranking, and we never hide posts from people you’re following – if you keep scrolling, you will see them all. Again, your feed is personalized to you and evolves over time based on how you use Instagram.”

Instagram added that while the viral claim is mostly untrue, the part of it that asks people to like and leave a comment on the post, in order to boost the user’s ranking on people’s feeds is true.

In the past, Instagram has claimed that its feed algorithm studies things like what posts you tend to interact with the most, how new a post is and who you interact with most when determining which posts appear on your feed and in what order to they appear. However, some Instagram users still remain skeptical.