Hacker News Reader

Comment by thewarrior | Hacker News Reader

What I've noticed is that Instagrams recommendation algorithms are creepily accurate.

If you like browsing pictures of butts you'll get lots of butts and of the exact kind that you'd like. I'm not sure how they do it. I don't even post on Instagram. And yet I'm addicted now to the Explore tab. They've genuinely managed to build something addictive in a way that other networks are not.

Also Instagram is completely sanitized of politics and any other hot button stuff. So its just a space where you zone out.

Instagram is the crack cocaine of social media. A cocktail of addiction and narcissism refined into its most potent form. I predict that Instagram will continue to grow and might one day rival Facebook itself.

View on HN

Oh woah, definitely not sanitized of politics. Probably because I follow some politicians, I get recommendations for these crazy, aggressive political meme pages. I see some very very hot button stuff on my feed.

Count yourself lucky that Instagram looks politically sanitized!

Why would you follow politicians on Instagram in the first place?

Crazy thought... Maybe they enjoy the politicians Instagram feed

Outrage Addiction?

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=outrage+addiction

I mean, you can't escape politics on Instagram if you're actively searching & subscribing to the topic. I think the point is, even if you just follow close friends on Facebook, your news feed is almost still guaranteed to have daily political posts/memes/ads. The lack of ability to post links & easily repost/share on Instagram deters those types of groups from posting clickbait in the hopes to drive people to their ad-heavy pages. Instagram is a refreshing break from it in that regard.

I don't have a Facebook account (never did) but eventually "had" to create an Instagram account.

I was baffled when I saw their recommendations: They recommended me some old classmates and my university without having any direct interaction from me.

I understand how cookie syncing/matching works and I know Facebook probably knows a lot about me even without an account, but that still got me by surprise.

It's not just that.. anyone you know who ever imported their contacts list would be connected to you. With enough data points about them, FB/IG can infer quite a few things about you pretty easily.

If your university's alumni association imported their contact list, it's even worse.

As for the butt point, maybe you are not unique and are just seeing whats popular.

No, I post and look at almost exclusively photos of the outdoors in the western USA. I have no recommendations for butts, and few for photos of people of any kind -- they accurately point me to other nature and landscape photographers, and not much else.

I never see butts on instagram :/, but I just use it to occasionally share photos I'm proud of, and that's usually the only time I also happen to browse what my friends have posted. I have zero interest in any social/communication aspect that instagram may offer.

Facebook owns Instagram so they win either way

Reply on news.ycombinator.com