Instagram adds ‘Recommended’ posts from accounts you don’t follow to your main feed

'These posts are suggested based on posts liked by accounts you follow,' the company says

Aatif Sulleyman
Thursday 28 December 2017 11:18 EST
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A woman carries an Instagram branded bag at Facebook's headquarters in London, Britain, December 4, 2017
A woman carries an Instagram branded bag at Facebook's headquarters in London, Britain, December 4, 2017 (REUTERS/Toby Melville)

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Instagram has made a major change to the main feed, with the introduction of “Recommended” posts.

A new section called Recommended for You has started appearing within the photo stream, showing updates from accounts you don’t follow.

It’s a strange move from Instagram, which is essentially flooding the feed with pictures and videos that don’t necessarily belong there.

“These posts are suggested based on posts liked by accounts you follow,” the company says.

However, these are the type of updates users typically expect to find on the Search & Explore page.

Recommended for You posts are clearly labelled as such, and each post that appears in the section encourages you to follow the account that posted it.

Instagram says the section isn’t designed to displace content from accounts you follow, and only appears “after you’ve viewed all the posts in your feed”, reports TechCrunch.

Instagram recently started letting people follow hashtags as well as accounts, but the feature is much less intrusive, as you can choose which topics you want to follow, or follow none at all.

Recommended for You is different. Though you can temporarily hide it from your feed – by tapping the menu button that appears alongside Recommended for You and selecting Hide – there's no way to switch it off permanently

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