Instagram has launched a feature called 'Your Algorithm' that lets you look at the topics the app thinks you like — and change them. Until now, the system that decides which videos and images to show you worked invisibly in the background. Now you can actually see what categories Instagram has filed you into, and adjust them if they no longer fit.

The feature was announced in December 2025. When you use it, you'll see a list of topics that Instagram's system has associated with your account based on what you watch and like. You can remove topics that don't interest you anymore, or emphasize the ones you do care about. The app then adjusts what you see in Reels (Instagram's short videos) and Explore (its discovery grid) based on those changes.

What You're Actually Seeing

Here's the important part: 'Your Algorithm' doesn't show you the inner workings of Instagram's system. Think of it like looking at your car's dashboard — you can see the fuel gauge and the speedometer, but not all the electronics under the hood. What Instagram shows you is a simplified list of interests the app has guessed about you. The actual machinery underneath — the part that watches how long you pause on a video, how fast you scroll, which creators you follow — that keeps running exactly as before. The change is that your explicit choices (the things you deliberately tell the app you want) now matter more than before.

In practice, this means you don't have to hide videos for weeks hoping the algorithm eventually figures out you've lost interest in something. You can just tell it directly.

Why Instagram Is Doing This Now

This move is not separate from the world of rules and competition that Instagram operates in. The European Union passed a law called the Digital Services Act that took full effect in 2023. The law requires big platforms to let people control how the recommendation system works — to offer at least some choices that aren't based on tracking your behaviour, and to explain how the system picks what you see.

Instagram's new feature lines up with what that law asks for. While Instagram hasn't said "we built this because of the law," the timing and what the feature does both point in that direction.

It's also worth noting that Instagram's main competitors already had similar controls. TikTok and YouTube both let you tell the app you're not interested in certain content or creators. Instagram is essentially catching up.

There is something else worth considering here: having a control doesn't guarantee it works well. Social media platforms have a mixed track record on this. When you tell an app "I don't want to see this topic," it doesn't always stick. Videos that get a lot of engagement tend to come back even if you've said you don't want them. Whether Instagram's version will actually keep your feed shaped the way you want it, or whether your viewing habits will pull it back over time, we won't know until people use it for a while.

How This Fits into Bigger Trends

What Instagram is doing here is part of a longer pattern in tech. In the early 2010s, social apps switched from showing you what your friends posted (which you controlled) to algorithms that guessed what you'd want to see. The algorithms often worked well at keeping you engaged — but you didn't have much say in it. After years of complaints and regulation, companies are now putting controls back in. Instagram is the latest example.

This isn't unusual. Technology swings like a pendulum. The industry builds something, discovers the downside, adds controls, and inches toward balance. That process is slow and usually needs outside pressure to move it along.

What's Not Clear Yet

Instagram hasn't said whether 'Your Algorithm' will grow to let you control things beyond topics. You might eventually be able to tell the app "show me more from this creator" or "I want longer videos," but we don't know if that's coming.

The bigger question, from a transparency standpoint, is whether Instagram will actually share data about how many people use this feature, which topics they change most often, and whether the changes actually shift what appears in their feeds. That kind of information would help researchers and regulators understand whether these controls are genuinely useful or just window dressing.

For now, the feature represents a step toward giving users more control over what they see on one of the world's most-used apps. What happens next depends on whether the control actually works the way Instagram says it will.