🧼 Give your feed a refresh: Instagram is testing a feature that lets you reset your algorithmic suggestions for your Feed, Reels and Explore sections. Head to Settings > Content Preferences > Reset Suggested Content. Note: This reset doesn’t delete anything and won’t change the ads you see.
Reset your social media algorithms
Still stuck in election season on your social media feed? Or maybe you bought one bottle of perfume and now Big Tech thinks you’re launching a beauty empire. Algorithms are smart, but they don’t know when you’re ready to get back to your regularly scheduled programming, like cat videos and memes. Here’s how to reset your feed and take control of what you see.
Start with Facebook
Goodbye, annoying ads. It only takes a minute to kick out the things you no longer want to see.
🛠️ The fix: Filter your advertising topics by going to Settings & Privacy > Settings > Account Center > Ad Preferences > Customize ads.
Now, on to YouTube
Say your family is staying with you for the holidays and your niece is watching cartoons on your YouTube account all day long. Now that’s all YouTube recommends. Delete your search history to get things back to normal.
🛠️ The fix: On the YouTube app, tap You to bring up your History. Tap the cog icon > Settings > Manage All History. At the bottom, you’ll see DELETE with a blue down arrow. Tap from the dropdown menu to delete videos from today, a custom range or all time. Click X to remove items individually, if you prefer.
Going forward, turn off your viewing history any time you don’t want those vids in your algorithm. You can set your video and search histories to autodelete, too. Now your YouTube is back to how you like it, with my video podcast at the very top. You’ll love it!
TikTok tracks your habits
TikTok’s algorithm is built to keep you on the app. Every time you like, follow or comment on something, it tells the algorithm you’re interested in a video, and more videos like it will pop up on your For You page. Disliking a video or writing a nasty comment doesn’t matter, by the way; you still kept watching.
🛠️ The fix: Reset your feed. Open your Profile in the bottom right corner then press the three lines at the top right > Settings and Privacy > Content Preferences > Refresh Your For You Feed > Continue.
Fine-tune Instagram
How to take the perfect profile pic for social media sites
Your profile picture is more important than you might think. It’s your chance to make a good first impression on the world. That’s why you must know how to take the perfect profile picture for all your accounts.
Say you’re applying for a new job. Potential employers will run background checks on your social media presence. You need to have good pictures that show you at your best.
The best times to post on Instagram
Want your posts to go viral? Timing is everything! Here are the best times to share your content and watch your engagement soar.
Meta killed over 2 million accounts this year: Scammers were using them for pig-butchering schemes. The fake profiles lured victims into bogus investment traps. These scams mostly come from Asia, where 300,000 people have been forced to work for criminals. But why did Meta let 2 million scammers make accounts in the first place? Because they can’t “afford” to hire people since they only made $40.59 billion in the last quarter. Silly me.
Which social media platform was originally named Picaboo? Was it … A.) Instagram, B.) Snapchat, C.) Twitter or D.) Pinterest?
500,000 fans
On Xiaohongshu (China’s Instagram) for Maye Musk. Elon’s gorgeous mom has been a model for many years and is a superstar in China. At 75, she’s a top silver-haired influencer. Maye we all be this fabulous.
🏥 Hope she’s OK: Celebrity chef Rachael Ray posted an Instagram video in which she was slurring her words. It racked up hundreds of thousands of views, and internet “doctors” speculated a stroke, alcoholism or worse. On a recent podcast, Ray said she’d suffered “a couple of bad falls” but no other details.
Meta’s hiding political posts: A woman who usually pulls in millions of views on Instagram saw her audience drop 63% after using the word “vote” in 11 posts. One in five American adults gets their news from Instagram, but Meta still directs its algorithm away from content related to laws, elections, crimes or anything else controversial (paywall link). Yup, it’s happening on Facebook, too.
Meta’s new AI tool jams: If you run ads on Facebook or Instagram, you can now turn still images into videos. I like this example: A simple jar of strawberry jam upgraded with floating, animated strawberries. The feature is live but not for everyone yet.
🚨 Seven years of slacking: Meta’s been slapped with a $101 million fine for storing up to 600 million Facebook and Instagram passwords in plain-text format. That’s a major security no-no. Even worse? The breach was discovered in 2019, but some passwords had been unprotected since 2012 and were searchable by over 20,000 Meta employees. The fine isn’t big enough.
👋 Don’t fall for this: There’s a new viral post making the rounds on Facebook, Instagram and other Meta platforms. The post says if you don’t copy the post and share it, you’re fine with Meta using your info and photos. Reality check: It’s fake and won’t do diddly-squat. Make your account private; Meta AI (supposedly) only pulls from public posts.
✅ Instagram for teens: Congress is laying on the pressure and Meta is finally making changes. “Teen accounts” for anyone under 18 will block non-friends from viewing their content or messaging them. Parents can also see who their kids have recently messaged, set daily time limits and block app usage during certain hours. Full list of changes here. Share this one with anyone with a teen.
New to Instagram: Comment on a story. Yep — a public comment, not a direct message only the person posting sees. To try it, tap the speech bubble icon in the bottom left corner of a story.
New Instagram features: Add text to photos by tapping the text button, or throw in stickers via the gallery. Reels got an upgrade, too, with new fonts, animations and text effects. Simply tap the text button, and then hit the animations button and effects button. Plus, you can now upload up to 20 photos in one post.
Length matters: On Facebook, you can go up to 63,000 characters (don’t, though — that’s too long!). Mobile cuts you off at 150. On X, you have up to 280 characters; 70 to 100 tend to perform best. As for Instagram, it’s 2,200 characters max, but only the first 125 are seen. With LinkedIn, go long if you must, but the first 25 words matter most.
Same ol’ privacy dance: Instagram collects your data when you’re using other apps and websites … and buries it in the settings menu. To disable that, open Instagram > tap your profile picture > three-line menu > Accounts Center at the top. Choose Your information and permissions > Your activity off Meta technologies. From here, choose Clear previous activity and Manage future activity to turn it off.
🐻 Moo-ve away: A new Instagram filter, Selfie Control, warns when you’re too close when taking pics of wild animals. Right now, it’s exclusive to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and comes preloaded with distance requirements for bison, bears and moose. I mean, really, if you need an app for this, you’re just an idiot.
Meta-morphosis: Meta’s AI Studio for Instagram lets you create an AI version of yourself. The AI “you” can chat with followers on Instagram, Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp. It’s free to use at ai.meta.com/ai-studio or in the IG app. I’ll hold off on creating an AI Kim.
Hide your Instagram Stories: If family members or coworkers follow you on IG, you might not want them to see those party vacation pics. In the app, tap your profile picture in the bottom right, then tap the three lines to the top right > Settings > Privacy > Story > Hide Story From, and select anyone you want to hide your story from. They’ll still be able to see your profile and posts!