Instagram Admits That It Is Lowering The Quality of Videos It Considers Unpopular

Instagram Reels, low quality

Business is business. And it's important for businesses to know the choices they have, and the consequences of those options.

In this case, Instagram is choosing sides, and that it sides with what benefits its own purpose. Here, it's revealed that it favors the crowd by giving preferential treatment to what it deems popular. In an interview, Instagram head Adam Mosseri shared some insight into why some videos on the platform appear reduced in quality well after they’re posted.

Responding to a question about old Instagram Stories looking “blurry” in highlights, Mosseri said that, "In general, we want to show the highest-quality video we can.

But if something isn’t watched for a long time — because the vast majority of views are in the beginning — we will move to a lower quality video."

And if the video later spikes in popularity again, "then we will re-render the higher quality video," he said in the response

So what happens here is that, the quality of an Instagram video is influenced by its popularity.

According to Mosseri, the Meta executive overseeing Instagram and Threads, Instagram allocates its resources to showcase "the highest-quality video that we can."

But when videos gain more traction, they're given more privilege, and are displayed in higher quality. The opposite applies to videos that are less popular, in which Instagram will allocate lesser resources, meaning that they will appear in noticeable lower quality.

Mosseri noted that if a video doesn’t receive sustained views, most of which occur shortly after posting, that video will be downgraded to lower quality.

In other words, Instagram is showing its bias towards the popular, making them even more important, by downplaying lesser popular content.

The company does this due to performance.

Mosseri explains that the algorithms are reducing the quality of lesser popular videos on an "aggregate level, not an individual level," meaning that it’s not a situation where individual viewer engagement will affect the quality of the video that’s played for them.

"We bias to higher quality (more CPU intensive encoding and more expensive storage for bigger files) for creators who drive more views," Mosseri added.

"It’s not a binary [threshold], but rather a sliding scale."

Back in 2023, Meta wrote a blog post about using different encoding configurations for different videos depending on their popularity.

But after users finally realize what they're now experiencing, a lot of them began questioning, and also criticizing the Meta-owned platform, with one going as far to describe the company’s approach as “truly insane.”

Several users voiced concerns that this approach advantages popular creators over smaller ones.

They began to consider popular creators to be benefited hugely from posting on the platform, receiving preferential treatment from Instagram through higher video quality. This further solidify the visibility of popular creators, on the expense of leaving smaller content creators in the shadows, and making it even more challenging for them to gain visibility.

Mosseri acknowledged this concern.

"It’s a valid point," but he argued, "In practice, it doesn’t seem to matter much, as the quality shift isn’t significant, and viewer interaction with videos is primarily driven by the content rather than the quality."

He concluded that quality tends to be much more crucial for the original creator.

Published: 
29/10/2024