Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Threads and Mastodon

YouTube

• Rewards satisfaction, not just watch time. Signals include "clicks, watchtime, survey responses, sharing, likes, and dislikes," and YouTube measures "valued watchtime" through surveys where "Only videos that you rate highly with four or five stars are counted" (YouTube Blog).
• Listens to "no." Dislikes, "Not interested" and "Don't recommend channel" tell the system what to avoid (YouTube Help).
• Takeaway: a video people are glad they watched beats a video that tricked them into staying.

TikTok

• Ranks on your interactions and adjusts for what you say you're not interested in (TikTok Newsroom).
• Reduces repeats and spam. "We also don't recommend duplicated content, content you've already seen before, or any content that's considered spam," and "spam content such as videos seeking to artificially increase traffic" may be ineligible for For You (same source).
• Wants originality. Content "is also ineligible for the FYF if it includes unoriginal or reused material without anything new" (TikTok Community Guidelines).

Instagram

• Three signals lead. Instagram's head, Adam Mosseri, said in January 2025: "The top three signals that matter most for ranking are watch time, likes and sends," with likes counting slightly more with followers and sends slightly more with new audiences (as reported by Social Samosa, 23 Jan 2025).
• Penalizes reposting others' work. Accounts that mostly repost lose recommendations; Instagram extended this to photos and carousels in 2026 (as reported by Creatorflow). Hypothesis until you read Instagram's own creator pages: we couldn't open them from our tools.

Facebook

• Demotes engagement bait. Meta's content distribution guidelines list engagement bait, posts that ask for reactions, comments, shares, tags or votes to boost reach, as something it reduces (Meta Transparency Center).
• Reduces problematic content rather than only removing it (Meta Transparency Center).

Threads

• Predicts replies and follows. Meta says the Threads feed ranks posts by predicting whether you'll like, reply, tap in or follow the author (Meta Transparency Center: Threads Feed).
• Fights its own bait problem. In October 2024 Meta acknowledged a rise in engagement bait on Threads and said it was working on it (The Verge).

Mastodon

• No ranking at all on your home feed. "No algorithms or ads to waste your time... receive their posts in chronological order" (joinmastodon.org). Post when your people are online, and boosts from real people are the only amplifier.