Fighting the Feed: Swedish Writer Battles Instagram's Diet and Botox Algorithm

Swedish writer Vera von Otter is embarking on an experiment to reclaim her digital space from an overwhelming flood of diet advice and botox promotions on Instagram. She describes her feed as a "pendulum of anxiety and reassurance," where conflicting messages create a cycle that is difficult to escape.

Von Otter's decision stems from years of exposure to what she terms "toxic content and AI garbage." Her Instagram feed has become so saturated with specific types of content that it barely reflects the outside world, lacking any indication of current events like elections or even major sporting events like the football World Cup. It feels, she writes, as if she is not a citizen of any society.

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My feed has started to resemble the pendulum of anxiety and reassurance of obsessive-compulsive disorder, where every other thought makes you die inside and every other reassures you that everything is fine.

"My feed has started to resemble the pendulum of anxiety and reassurance of obsessive-compulsive disorder," von Otter states, illustrating the psychological toll of the algorithm's curated reality. Despite the feeling that improving the stream of content might be a "lost race," she is determined to try, unwilling to abandon smartphones or social media entirely.

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It feels like an already lost race to improve the stream of content that I wake up and fall asleep to, but since I don't have it in me to abandon either smartphones or social media, I thought I would at least try.

Her attempt to curate a more constructive online experience was met with swift algorithmic adaptation. Within hours, the platform served her a post about "finding a needle in a haystack," complete with a video of a man searching for a hidden needle under the hashtag #freewillmaxxing. This rapid response underscores the challenge of breaking free from the algorithm's powerful influence, even when actively trying to redirect it.

Von Otter's experience echoes findings from recent media reports in Sweden and internationally, which have shown how quickly social media platforms can fill new accounts with specific types of content, sometimes pushing them towards extreme viewpoints. Tests focusing on eating disorder content, for instance, have yielded consistent results across various publications, indicating a pervasive issue with algorithmic curation.

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finding a needle in a haystack