How to clear AI slop from your Instagram and TikTok feeds

The internet is awash in AI slop. Unwanted photos and videos created with generative AI software, AI slop can include bizarre images of religious figures as part shrimp or clips of a dog cutting vegetables with a knife or a farmer fistfighting a cow. The point? To drive clicks and views. And thanks to the wonder of social media algorithms, once you interact with one piece of AI slop, you’ll inevitably see more and more of it in your feed. That’s exactly what happened to me when I was mindlessly scrolling Instagram (META) and came across a clip of what looked like someone cleaning a blanket of barnacles off of a dolphin. For a fleeting moment, I thought a dolphin was letting someone get close enough to wipe the tiny crustaceans off its side. Of course, I quickly realized it was just AI garbage, but tapping on the video must have sent a signal to Instagram that I wanted to see virtually nothing but AI-generated videos on my Explore page. Needless to say, it was annoying. Thankfully, though, there’s a way to quickly reset your content preferences without too much trouble. An example of the kind of AI nonsense floating around social media apps. To do so, you’ll need to open Instagram and tap the profile icon in the bottom right of the screen. From there, tap the three horizontal lines in the top right corner and scroll down to and select “Content preferences.” From here you can edit what you're interested in or not interested in, see which words or phrases you’ve hidden, and adjust your settings related to sensitive and political content. Tap “Reset suggest content,” and you’ll get a screen explaining that resetting your suggested content will change the topics of images and videos you might normally see, that resetting content can’t be undone, and that doing so won’t change who you follow or delete your data. Tap the “Next” button at the bottom of the page, and you’ll get a page asking you if you also want to unfollow any accounts, including those that appear in your feed most often. You’ll also be able to adjust the ad topics you see. Then press “Reset suggested content,” and you’ll see a pop-up asking you to confirm your choice. Tap “Reset suggested content,” and you’re set. You’ll now see far less AI trash in your feed. Another bizarre AI video. TikTok users also have the ability to reset their feeds to get rid of content they no longer want to see. To fix things on the short-form video app, tap the Profile button in the bottom right corner of the screen. Then press the three horizontal lines in the top right corner and select “Settings and privacy.” Under Content & Display, choose “Content preferences” and then tap “Refresh your For You feed.” TikTok will then present you with a page explaining how the refresh works and that it won’t impact videos from accounts you follow.