How YouTube, Instagram and TikTok actually work, from the platforms’ own rules.
In a 2023 post, Instagram’s head Adam Mosseri set out the signals that rank reels, the predictions the system makes about each viewer, and the kinds of video it deliberately shows less. It remains the clearest public account of why a reel from a stranger lands on your screen.
A check mark next to a name is one of the few symbols every platform uses and none defines the same way. Here is what the companies themselves say a badge does and does not mean, and what it takes to get one.
Three minutes, square or vertical, and a view that counts the moment playback starts. YouTube’s own help pages spell out what makes a Short a Short, and the rules changed twice in the space of six months.