Instagram this week announced it will algorithmically punish accounts that cross-post their content to the platform. This is a change in the way that Instagram will rank your brands' content, and prioritizes what they called “original work.”

What he's basically saying here is: “We don't want you to repost things from TikTok,”

Which means if your content strategy includes resharing, it may be time to rethink.

This all sounds familiar.

But if this sounds familiar, it's because they said they'd do this more than a year ago. Although back then, they claimed “Naw, this has nothing to do with that app — what's it called again? Ticky-Ticky? No, all we care about is the video quality.”

Here's what they actually said back then:

We’ve… heard that low video quality reels … or content that is visibly recycled from other apps (i.e. contains logos or watermarks) makes the Reels experience less satisfying. So, we’re making this content less discoverable in places like the Reels tab.

Which video editing tools qualify?

But what about if you use another app, like a video editing app, to create the video? According to Instagram, content edited outside of the app, then uploaded, won’t be penalized under this change, saying “The idea is if you made it, it’s original.”

So, wait… what then qualifies as an appropriate app? TikTok's app has a better suite of video editing tools than Reels. Is that not a video editor? What about an app dedicated to video clips, like CapCut? You'd think that would be okay, though that app is actually owned by TikTok's parent company.

Instagram doesn't actually know what's original.

So what about if you're using a watermark remover; how will the algorithm be able to identify which content is original?

Instagram admitted that it can’t, saying “We build classifiers to predict how likely something is to be original, but that’s not knowing. We look at things like who’s in the video, and if we’ve seen the video before.

The platform also noted that content aggregators are the focus of this update and that it will use your account posting history to determine this. Consequently, if your brand is posting memes and content from other accounts, you may see a decline in reach.

The effect on remix culture

All of this is very hazy — part of TikTok's culture, and I suspect what Instagram wants for its Reels copycat product too, is the very function of repurposing — Remixes, duets, stitches… hell, the majority of the videos out there in this format are riffs on other people's content.

Will Instagram's new algo change ban those too?

Watch this space.