It was born as a photo social network but today it has more videos than photos, a transition that doesn't please everyone and that the social network itself has disproportionate in a way that it didn't want, but which it is already correcting.

In 2022, Instagram showed too many videos, to the detriment of photos, content that made the platform popular and still remains important to the company. Adam Mosseri, head of the Meta group's social network, took over.

The person in charge made the mea culpa in a weekly interaction with users, assuming that "in 2022 we were too focused on video" and, as a result, "we showed too many videos and too few photos". For this year, the promise is of a better balance between the two types of content, something that is already being worked on and which is not the only promise of improvement for this year.

In a post on the social network on the subject, he explained that this is not the way the platform wants to continue and that this has happened because videos are more effective in engaging users and end up taking priority in the platform's algorithm.

The plan is to ensure a better balance between the two types of content and, to this end, the algorithm has been worked on. In order to understand the effectiveness of this work, various internal metrics have been applied, which show, for example, that the number of times someone likes or comments on a photo or video is identical, indications that this balance has been achieved, the company believes.

In the same message, Mosseri took the opportunity to reassure a segment of users who were critical to popularizing the platform and who have been equally critical of Instagram's latest developments. "We certainly have a number of photographers who have been unhappy. I want to be clear: although we're leaning towards video, we still value photos. Photos will always be part of Instagram.

Also promised for 2023 is a more effective fight against spam and bots on the platform. Mosseri himself says that he sees an increase in the number of likes coming from this type of account in his posts. The phenomenon is also on the rise in comments. "We are doing our best to reduce" this impact and "we hope to improve over the course of the year", he said in statements quoted by The Verge and Sapo.

Last year many of the changes announced by Instagram were precisely to improve the platform's video features, such as sharing all videos under 15 minutes as Reels, and a set of tools for editing and showing videos on the platform.