Kenyan digital creators face a potential drop in audience reach as Instagram expands its crackdown on unoriginal content, targeting posts that rely heavily on reposted material such as memes.
The move by the Meta-owned platform is expected to hit pages and content aggregators that have built large followings by sharing viral clips and images sourced from other users without significant modification.
Under the new policy, which takes effect in May, the platform will assess the overall composition of an account’s posts over a month.
If most of the content is deemed reposted or unoriginal, Instagram will stop recommending that account to users who do not already follow it, which has been a key source of audience growth for creators.
The restrictions were previously applied to short-form videos, popularly known as Reels. The latest changes extend enforcement to photos and carousel posts, significantly widening their impact.
“We announced that we were going to try to shift more reach from aggregators and people who repost other people’s content to the original content creators,” Instagram chief executive Adam Mosseri said in a video announcement.
“That means that we’re no longer going to show your posts to people who don’t follow your account proactively.” Affected users can check their status through the app’s account settings, Mr Mosseri said.
The policy shift is part of a broader push by Instagram to prioritise original content as it competes with rival platforms like TikTok and YouTube for creator engagement and advertising revenue.
The company defines original content as material created by the user or significantly transformed through editing, commentary or creative input. By contrast, low-effort edits, such as adding watermarks, minor speed changes or reposting screenshots with attribution, will not qualify, potentially leaving a large segment of meme-driven accounts exposed to reduced visibility.
“Remix the content in some way, shape, or form. Make it your own. You can do your green screen or your own words on top, or your own commentary,” the Instagram chief said.
“If you don't have a way to make a spin on the content to make it your own, you can either repost someone else's content using the repost button, which gives them credit where it's due, or you can do a collab post.”
The changes come at a time when Kenya’s digital creator economy is expanding rapidly post the Covid-19 pandemic, with influencers, meme pages and content curators increasingly monetising audiences through brand partnerships and advertising.
Creators are producing brand-sponsored photos and videos, embedding product links in posts, and directly selling physical or digital goods through their pages for a fee.
A recent study by Nairobi-based research and data analytics firm OdipoDev estimates that Kenya’s top social media influencers earned a combined Sh296 million in 2025 from brand-sponsored posts, pushing total creator economy payouts to Sh1.07 billion.
Instagram was the most lucrative platform for Kenyan creators, with an analysis of the top 10 creators showing that 40.8 per cent of their views in 2025 were commercialised, compared with 59.2 per cent that were organic.
Reduced reach could therefore have direct income implications for creators who rely on viral distribution to attract followers and commercial deals, particularly those whose digital profiles are built around reposted or curated content.
