Instagram Main Feed Now Lets You Edit Your Algorithm Topics

Instagram’s main feed, the part of the app most people spend the most time in, can now be adjusted based on the topics the algorithm has assigned to you. The feature, called Your Algorithm, was already available in Reels and Explore. Extending it to the main feed closes the most obvious gap.

The practical mechanic matters here: users can see which interest categories Instagram has inferred from their behavior and edit them directly. This is a different approach from the indirect signals the platform has relied on since it switched to an algorithmic feed in 2016. For most of that period, the only way to train the feed was to interact with content and hope the system noticed.

Adam Mosseri framed the update as a response to a specific psychological complaint, that users feel the app is happening to them rather than responding to them. That framing is candid in a way Instagram’s communications rarely are, and it maps closely to the language regulators in the EU and UK have used when pushing for algorithmic transparency requirements.

What comes next

Instagram says future expansions of the feature will cover preferences around specific people, content types, and moods. That last category is vague enough to mean almost anything, but filtering by content type would be genuinely useful for people who follow accounts across very different interests.

The timing is not accidental. Meta is navigating ongoing scrutiny over how its platforms affect younger users, and tools that visibly return control to the user are easier to point to in regulatory conversations than backend ranking changes. Transparency features and accountability are not the same thing, but one photographs better than the other.

The feature is a real improvement for users who want a less passive experience. How many people will actually engage with it, given that most users never touch default settings, is a separate question entirely.