Instagram now offers its users the option of displaying a thread of messages chronologically, and no longer only managed by a ranking algorithm. The company’s chief executive officer (CEO), Adam Mosseri, announced it on Tuesday March 23 on his Twitter account.
The social network of photographs and videos, owned by Meta (ex-Facebook), had previously tested this feature and announced its deployment in January. In addition to the usual Instagram feed, managed by the algorithm, Internet users will be able to click on two additional navigation windows:
- In the “Subscriptions” tab, they will see the content posted by the accounts to which they are subscribed in the chronological order in which they were published.
- The “Favorites” tab will display the content of the accounts that the user has designated as their favorites.
These options, available on iOS and Android, will not be active on computers, specifies the news site on new American technologies TechCrunch.
Toxic recommendations
This is not a return to the original Instagram feed, which was, until 2016, chronological. “We believe in customization”, assures Adam Mosseri in the video he tweeted on March 23, recalling that the main page of the application will continue to be offered and governed in the same way. Currently, its automatic ranking algorithms take into account a large number of indices – in particular the accounts that users like (“like”) regularly -, supposed to determine which photos and videos are most likely to interest them.
More recently, this selection and recommendation system has come under considerable criticism from associations and researchers, who consider that it gives precedence to many harmful content. The documents revealed at the end of 2021 by former Facebook employee Frances Haugen showed, among other things, that content published by celebrities was strongly promoted in Internet users’ feeds, and could have negative consequences for the well-being. being and self-esteem of some Instagram users.