
My Instagram newsfeed has recently become gunked up with “because you watched…” crap. That is, I am being shown videos that I have not selected, but which are inserted into my newsfeed and labeled “Because you watched”. For example, “Because you watched a reel from automateconstruction” we are going to show you a video from forgottenfossils. Thing is, I have never watched a reel from automateconstruction.
I can only assume that this is Instagram’s new way of shoving suggested material down my throat.
Today I counted 100 posts in my newsfeed and found the following instances:
- 20 actual human posts
- 19 posts from persons/things I chose to follow
- 29 “because you watch…” posts
- 26 Sponsored posts
- 6 Suggested posts
The statisticians will tell you that this is a Gunk Quotient (GQ, a statistical term) of 61% and that the “because you watched” (BYW) posts are currently my newsfeed’s statistical “mode”–the most common posts. And most of those BYW posts are bogus references to videos that I did NOT watch, as above.
The odd thing is that this is only in the mobile app’s newsfeed. When I view Instagram in a browser, the GQ is much lower.
I’ve searched in vain to find a way to turn off BYW posts. Does anyone know how to shut them down? Or must I delete the Instagram app from my phone, as I have already done for Facebook?