How would you detect unhealthy growth in Reels

Problem Statement Description

Product context: Meta is a social technology company; its products include Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger, Threads, Quest, creator tools, and ads.

Meta Reels is growing across viewers, creators, and advertisers, but not all growth is necessarily healthy. In this metrics interview, you are asked to define how you would detect whether Reels’ growth is creating durable value or whether it is being driven by low-quality engagement, creator dissatisfaction, unsafe content, spammy behavior, or short-term metric inflation.

Focus on the Reels ecosystem, with particular attention to creators as a key segment. Creators may be posting more content, reaching larger audiences, or earning more, but the platform also needs to understand whether that growth supports long-term retention, content quality, viewer satisfaction, monetization, and safety at Meta scale.

Your task is not to propose a new Reels feature. Instead, frame the metric problem: what “unhealthy growth” means, how you would measure it, how you would distinguish it from normal product growth, and how the measurement system would help product teams make decisions.

The experience should consider:

- Clear definitions of healthy vs. unhealthy growth for Reels across viewers, creators, content, and monetization

- Primary metrics, denominators, and time windows that avoid misleading conclusions

- Instrumentation needed to observe creation, distribution, consumption, feedback, safety, and monetization signals

- Cohort cuts such as new vs. established creators, heavy vs. casual viewers, geography, content category, and acquisition source

- Guardrail metrics for creator retention, viewer satisfaction, content quality, policy violations, spam, and ad experience

- How to separate short-term spikes from durable engagement or creator ecosystem health

- How the metrics would surface actionable diagnosis rather than just reporting that growth is up or down

The goal is to show how you would build a practical measurement approach that helps Meta determine whether Reels is scaling in a sustainable way, while protecting user trust, creator incentives, platform safety, and long-term business value.