Instagram fixes ‘Rug Pulling’ feature that caused videos to disappear
Instagram has fixed a long-standing feature known internally as “carpet pulling,” an issue that many users had mistaken for a glitch. The term refers to the way Instagram pauses the content a user is viewing when they first open the app and replaces it with a new post, even if they haven’t finished viewing the existing content.
In one video Posted on his Instagram Story, Instagram head Adam Mosseri said the concept was an intentional strategy to keep users engaged during load times by displaying pre-loaded content until the newer content was fully ready. But this often left users feeling shocked and disoriented.
“We did that because we were trying to load content and it was taking a while, so we showed you something that had already been downloaded in the meantime,” he said. “And it was generally good for engagement. That said, it’s really annoying, so we stopped doing it.”
Read more: Instagram is reducing the quality of some videos in your feed. Here’s why
Now the app loads new content in the background, but only pushes it to the user when they scroll. The change reflects Instagram’s shift to prioritizing user experience to improve user satisfaction and retention.
“We’ve taken a bit of an engagement hit, but it’s a much better experience for the average user, so there’s no more rug-pulling to do,” Mosseri said.
Read more: Instagram adds new safety tools to protect teens from sextortion
This is the second time in the past month that Mosseri has provided insight into Instagram’s strategic choices. Mosseri said in another video that the company purposefully adjusts the quality of videos in user feeds to optimize for both viewing time and network conditions.
“In general, when we watch a video, story, movie or photo, we want to show the highest quality video,” Mosseri said in the video. “But if something is not viewed for a longer period of time, because the vast majority of views are still in the beginning, we switch to a lower quality video.”
