How Do Social Media Algorithms Work?
You can’t get far on the internet without the word algorithm popping up—and social media platforms are no exception. Whether you’re aware of it or not, these algorithms are constantly working in the background. Here’s how they shape the content you see and why that matters.
When we refer to social media algorithms, we’re talking about computational systems that decide what recommendations social media platforms offer you in your feeds.
You might be familiar with Instagram’s Explore page, the For You Page on X, and TikTok’s For You Page (FYP)—the feeds automatically generated for you by a social media platform. For each of these pages, the social media platform uses machine learning (ML) systems to predict what posts you’d like to see.
You’ll find that the more you engage with posts on your social media platforms, the better the recommendations you get. It’s because these ML systems can learn from your data. The more you interact with content, the better the algorithms are at predicting what you’d like to see.
Beyond content recommendations, social media platforms can suggest accounts you would like to follow (e.g. Facebook’s People You May Know feature, which you can easily disable), trending topics you might be interested in, inappropriate content or spam you’d rather not see, viral content you should definitely see, events in your area, and so much more.
Every recommendation or tailored experience, like personalized ads, is possible because an algorithm is involved.
Social media platforms collect data from your user profile, posts you’ve interacted with, currently trending posts, and sponsored posts to offer you recommendations and a personalized experience.
In other words, social media platforms use the following to offer you recommendations:
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Your interaction data |
This includes your likes, reactions, upvotes, comments, replies, shares, retweets, click-through rate (CTR), how long you spend watching a video or viewing another content type, swipe behavior, story interactions (forward and backward taps), and the accounts you interact with the most. |
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Your content preferences |
The algorithm may study your interactions and determine that you primarily engage with one format, length, or category of content (e.g. DIY YouTube Shorts). If this is the case, you’ll get more recommendations along these lines. |
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Your historical data |
This includes factors like accounts, posts, or topics you’ve previously engaged with, your past searches, the accounts you unfollow or mute. |
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Social signals |
Social media platforms track emerging trends and topics, as well as posts that have a rapid increase in user interactions. These platforms then recommend these trends and posts to a wider audience. |
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Your profile data |
Information linked to your profile, including age, demographics, location, and device, can be used by algorithms to target specific content towards you. |
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Your network |
Platforms can recommend content based on what posts your friends interact with or accounts based on the mutual connections you have with other users (e.g. LinkedIn’s profile suggestions). |
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Third-party tracking |
Social media platforms typically use tracking cookies, which influence personalized ads and content recommendations. Similarly, platforms owned by the same parent company may share data (especially if your profiles are linked), so if you frequently engage with certain content on Instagram, similar content might be recommended on Facebook. |
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Your feedback |
Platforms allow you to provide feedback on the recommendations you’re offered in order to influence future recommendations. |
By combining all of this data, social media algorithms can predict what posts you’re likely to be interested in or what posts you don’t want to see. Combined with their Community Guidelines, platforms then feed content to users.
Are Social Media Companies Really Controlling What Posts You See?
With all these sophisticated systems in play, it can be easy to declare that social media companies are controlling the content you see. But it’s not so black and white.
At their core, most social media companies rely on machine learning algorithms to predict what content you’ll love. The machine learning part here is key—the algorithm studies your data and evolves on its own, deciding what posts to show you.
However, these companies aren’t entirely hands-off. In fact, they have more influence over what you see than it might initially appear.
First, each platform has its own set of rules that dictate what’s allowed. For instance, Facebook filters out certain types of content from your news feed, like NSFW posts or content from groups known for promoting violence. Similarly, X (formerly Twitter) has been known to block, label, or demote tweets that violate its policies, and this includes tweets containing misleading information, deception, or intimidation.
Social media companies can also downrank or block certain posts altogether, especially when it comes to sensitive or controversial material. We’ve seen examples of this across multiple platforms. In 2020, Facebook and Twitter (before rebranding to X) limited the visibility of posts about the Hunter Biden laptop story, deeming the material misleading or hacked.
X has seen perhaps the most dramatic shift in content moderation. Under Elon Musk’s leadership, X has changed its style of content moderation, which is how Donald Trump’s account—initially banned—was reinstated. Even when Elon Musk took over, X briefly blocked links to its competitors. These actions show that companies have discretion in how they manage certain types of content—going beyond algorithms.
Some companies also decentralize or delegate certain moderation decisions to individuals or communities. On Reddit, for instance, moderators of each subreddit (Reddit community) can create and enforce their own rules. So you’ll find some subreddits with very loose guidelines and others with stricter policies. In this case, Reddit as a company doesn’t directly control what you see beyond certain guidelines for all subreddits.
So, while it’s an exaggeration to say that social media companies fully control everything you see, they certainly shape your experience via community/content guidelines and decisions about what to ban or demote. These influences vary across platforms and can shift over time in response to leadership changes, societal pressures, or other factors.
Ultimately, one constant remains—these platforms want to keep you engaged. The longer you scroll, the more ads you see and the more revenue the company generates. Both algorithms and human efforts serve this goal. Even if they occasionally miss the mark, these systems generally succeed in keeping you scrolling.