If you are an Instagram enthusiast so you must’ve noticed certain photos of men and women in your explore feed and you must wonder that where is it coming from? We have all the answers to your question.
But, According to the report by TheNextWeb, researchers from AlgorithmWatch and the European Data Journalism Network made the discovery by analysing Instagram newsfeeds, talking to content creators, and studying patents.
The team asked 26 volunteers to install a browser add-on that automatically opens their Instagram homepage at regular intervals, and records which posts appear at the top of their newsfeeds. The volunteers then followed a selection of professional content creators who use Instagram to advertise their brands or attract new clients.
The researchers expected that if Instagram‘s algorithm wasn’t prioritizing these pictures, the volunteers would see a similar diversity of posts. But that didn’t happen. In the volunteers’ newsfeeds, posts with semi-nude pictures made up 30% of the posts shown from the accounts.
They note that Facebook has published a patent showing how the newsfeed can automatically choose which pictures appear in newsfeeds. Among the factors that could determine which images to prioritize, the patent specifically mentions “state of undress”.
That suggests that Instagram could not only organize newsfeeds based on what a user wants; it could also select pictures based on what the company thinks they want.