User interactions

Instagram's explanations describe different uses of interactions in Feed, Stories and comment threads, rather than one identical ordering process everywhere123. For Stories, Meta's Transparency Center says Instagram considers who created a story and how the viewer previously interacted with that person before predicting its relevance and assigning its position3. For comment threads, the center describes placing potentially important comments first—including the viewer's own comments, friends' comments or pinned comments—and scoring other comments partly by relevance to the post and popularity among viewers2.

Instagram uses a person's history of interacting with someone to assess their interest in that account, with commenting on each other's posts as one example1. Its May 2023 explainer identifies five especially important Feed predictions: whether someone will spend a few seconds on a post, comment, like, share or tap the profile photo1. A post appears higher when Instagram predicts an action is more likely and gives that action greater importance in its calculations1. These predictions are not the only consideration: Instagram's June 2021 explainer also describes trying to avoid too many consecutive posts from the same person7.

User interactions also include deliberate choices about which accounts to keep following and which content to ask Instagram to review45. Mosseri explained in June 2025 that Instagram's least-interacted-with list covers the previous 90 days and can help people identify accounts to consider unfollowing5. He said there was not exactly a way to unfollow people in bulk5. Meta's Transparency Center lists whether a viewer previously unfollowed a comment's author among the information used by Instagram's comment system2. Open your Instagram profile, tap Following and select the option showing the accounts you have interacted with least5.

Instagram's comment system considers how frequently people have reported comments on a post and how many times the viewer has previously reported comments2. Instagram's February 2022 announcement says its teams and systems review reported material and take action on content they determine violates its Community Guidelines4. The announcement also says reports are anonymous except for those involving intellectual property violations4.

In December 2022, Mosseri described Instagram's plans for 2023 to encourage conversations about discoveries on the platform, rather than an entirely passive viewing experience8.