Recommendation SystemConsumer FacingVerified
Reviewed and published by trentmaziarz, March 17, 2026. Discovered and drafted by our automated research pipeline.
All content that appears in Facebook and Instagram feeds — posts, Reels, Stories, suggested accounts, Explore — is ranked by AI systems that predict what each user is most likely to engage with.
Details
Meta published 22 AI system cards (14 Facebook, 8 Instagram) in June 2023 detailing each algorithm. Instagram Reels: retrieval → lightweight model (~100 reels) → integrity filters → final ranking. Instagram video time up 20%+ YoY globally (Q2 2025). Instagram Explore: up to 1,500 media via collaborative filtering, personalized PageRank, two-tower sparse networks → early/late ranking. Meta's DLRM (2019) → Generative Recommenders (HSTU architecture, 2024) → 1.5 trillion parameter models now deployed. Controversies: Haugen testimony that 2018 'meaningful social interaction' algorithm change increased divisive content; Mozilla Foundation (2023) criticized system cards as incomplete.
Products affected
FacebookInstagram
Sources & Evidence
Company Disclosure
Cite this record
Trace Foundation. (2026). Meta: All content that appears in Facebook and Instagram feeds — posts, Reels, Stories, suggested accounts, Explore — is ranked by AI systems that predict what each user is most likely to engage with (data as of 2026-03-17) [Data set record]. AI Trace. https://www.aitrace.org/r/practice/57420c23-6144-4ad5-924e-9f26f12da0cb. Accessed October 14, 2026.
- Stable link
- https://www.aitrace.org/r/practice/57420c23-6144-4ad5-924e-9f26f12da0cb
- Data as of
- March 17, 2026
- Last verified
- March 5, 2026
Other practices by Meta
Customer SvcMeta AI is a free AI chatbot built into Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger that can answer questions, generate images, help with tasks, and hold voice conversations — available to approximately 700 million users monthly.ModerationMeta is training large language models to read its content policies and make enforcement decisions on flagged posts — replacing human content reviewers in an increasing number of violation categories.ModerationMeta uses AI to automatically scan and remove content that violates its rules across Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Threads — handling billions of posts per day before human reviewers ever see them.
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