# Feed Watch: how I keep up when the sites change their feeds

> Feed Watch is a daily signed-out check of YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, X, Reddit, Facebook and LinkedIn. It logs, with dates, when a site moves or adds a feed.

Source: https://ivehadit.app/docs/feed-watch · Section: Getting started · Updated: 2026-10-25

[Feed Watch](https://ivehadit.app/feed-watch) is a public log of how the social sites change their feeds. Every day a script visits the same pages on each site, signed out, and writes down what it finds. When something changes for real, such as a Shorts shelf showing up in YouTube search, the log gets a dated entry.

## Why I run it

My extension shuts feeds by knowing where they live: the YouTube home page, `/shorts`, Instagram's `/reels` and `/explore`, TikTok's For You page, and so on. The sites change those pages often, and they don't announce it. If YouTube moved Shorts to a new address, the extension would let it through until someone noticed.

So I check every day, on purpose, and I publish what I see. It keeps the extension honest, and it answers questions like "did YouTube add Shorts to search?" with a date instead of a guess.

## What it checks

| Site | Pages it visits |
|---|---|
| YouTube | Home, a search, a video page, Shorts |
| Instagram | Home, Reels, Explore, a profile |
| TikTok | For You, Explore, a profile |
| X / Twitter | Home, Explore, a profile |
| Reddit | Home, r/all, r/popular, a thread |
| Facebook | Home, Watch, Reels |
| LinkedIn | Feed, a profile |

On each page it notes:

- **Where the page lands** after any redirects, for example a login page.
- **Whether it asks you to log in** before you see anything.
- **Which feed pieces are there**, such as the home grid, a Shorts shelf, Shorts in the side menu, or posts in a feed. Each one is saved as there or not there, never as a count.
- **What my rules call the address**: a feed the extension shuts, or a page it leaves open. See [how it decides](https://ivehadit.app/docs/how-it-decides).

The same suite also runs the extension itself against the real sites and records whether it still shuts what it should.

## How it avoids false alarms

- A new value has to show up on two checks in a row before it counts. One-off experiments and slow pages don't make the log.
- Counts are reduced to there or not there, so 18 videos one day and 24 the next isn't a change.
- Sites often show a bot check to automated visitors. A blocked visit is shown as a status in the table and never logged as a change. The table keeps the last real result.
- The check runs signed out, so it sees what a logged-out visitor sees. Your own feed, signed in, can look different.

## Where to read it

- The page: [ivehadit.app/feed-watch](https://ivehadit.app/feed-watch), with today's status for every site and the change log, newest first. Each entry has its own link.
- As data: [/feed-watch.json](https://ivehadit.app/feed-watch.json).
- As a feed: [/feed-watch/rss.xml](https://ivehadit.app/feed-watch/rss.xml).

## Questions

### How often does Feed Watch run?

Once a day. The saved snapshot updates when something in it changes, and at least once a week either way, so "last checked" is never more than a week old.

### Does Feed Watch use my data or my browsing?

No. It runs on a server in a fresh browser with no account and no extension data. Nothing from your browser or your account is involved.

### Why does a row say "Bot check"?

The site showed a challenge to the automated browser instead of the page. That says nothing about the feed, so I keep the last real result and don't log a change.

### What happens when a site changes a feed?

The change shows up in the log with the date I first saw it. If the extension needs a new rule, I update it, and the extension's own checks confirm the fix on the next run.