Instagram is about to change and users have been outraged. The social network will adopt a new interface in which the content is displayed in full screen mode and the video is the main character. Video made by “content creators” and influencers, not your friends or family. Because there are very few social networks in social networks. Its goal is no longer to connect people with their relatives, but for them to see as many ads as possible in order to earn more money.
To do this, Instagram needs to increase the amount of time each user spends on the platform. And the best way is to copy the strategy that TikTok uses so successfully: constant doses of dopamine encapsulated in short videos about curiosities, trips or silly things. Plus, it’s free. HBO Max, Disney+ or Netflix are hiring directors, actors, writers to develop their content offering, but Instagram uses its users. They do not take a single euro, their salary is likes and compliments. The most popular can make a living out of it when they become billboards for people. Signature handbags, a great lipstick, or a much-needed protein shake to get in shape start to appear in her photos.
Today, this lifestyle is very popular, and children no longer want to be bullfighters or astronauts; they want to be “influential”.
Instagram wants to be TikTok because it’s more profitable
But this short video can squeeze more, so Instagram will mimic the TikTok interface. Many users have publicly expressed their dissatisfaction because they liked the app the way it is. Some of them have a large number of followers, like the Kardashians.
Adam Mosseri, CEO of the social network, said earlier this week that whether they like it or not, the redesign will be available to all users sooner or later. He admits that it still needs to be fine-tuned, but the course has already been set: Instagram is no longer a social network for photos or friends, but a short video app that makes money. And last Thursday, Mosseri said changes to the test would be put on hold due to poor usage data, saying it has to “falter from time to time or it won’t act ambitiously.” This cable pickup is just a pause to improve the execution of a plan that is not going to change.
The plan cannot change. Gradually, over these ten years, Instagram has evolved from a service for connecting friends and photographers to a kind of television in which you switch by swiping up. It goes from connecting people to connecting “content creators” with users. Fulanito is no longer from the bar, he is now Menganito, a content creator. Language is important because Facebook no longer talks about friends and family, it talks about creators and consumers. Creators who work for free, of course.
When I started Instagram many years ago, I didn’t do it to create content for Zuckerberg’s social network to increase its performance. Not me, not anyone, I guess. But we fall into the trap in exchange for a small virtual case or the need to promote our business in the hope of making money offline. Because if you’re not on social media, you don’t exist, at least that’s what they say.
Using AI to curate content goes against the original purpose of social media.
Because more of a concern than the interface is the screening system the company has recently implemented to improve its performance. The control that each user must see in order to view the content they have explicitly chosen to view is becoming increasingly limited. Friends’ content is getting more and more hidden, and it’s practically reduced to stories they’ve copied from Snapchat. Everything else is littered with recommendations for accounts that “might be of interest to you.”
Those who follow Schwarzenegger will see motivational videos from the gym, and those who follow Hamilton will see them from Formula 1. And as you watch more or less time depending on the content, Instagram’s AI will show you more related content. As a result, you end up, without realizing it, spending a lot of time every day doing fulminant between channels you never chose to watch. If TV is a dumb box… What is Instagram or Tiktok?
In a shareholder call this week, Mark Zuckerberg said that about 15% of the content you don’t follow that appears on your Instagram is selected by his artificial intelligence. This content will double by the end of next year.. This is a public statement that they are no longer a platform that brings people together, but a means of communication. This is significant because Facebook’s justification for its inaction in moderating certain content was based on the fact that they were only acting as a platform. Now that they openly admit that they will serve the content with algorithms, they will run out of a few remaining arguments in their defense.
Artificial intelligence will not recommend the best content, but the one that it considers more suitable for you to comment on something, like it or not, change to the next video. With such little user attention time, videos work best that make you angry, resentful, lie or, at best, they will make you smile. Instagram wants you to stay as long as possible and see as many ads as possible.
Facebook’s mission is no longer to connect the world, but to zombify it. Everything got hooked. looking at the screen; slip; give how; and, of course, advertising consumption. It’s like watching TV, but the remote is controlled by an algorithm and the host isn’t paid.
Source: Hiper Textual
