Instagram should soon offer its users the option of displaying a chronological message thread, and no longer managed by a ranking algorithm. The company’s President and CEO, Adam Mosseri, announced Wednesday, January 5 that the social network would soon test three different display options, two of which allow the photos published by the people being followed to appear in chronological order.
Currently, Instagram feeds are governed by automatic ranking algorithms, which take into account a large number of signals to determine which photos are most likely to interest users. It thus gives priority to photos published by accounts that the latter regularly “like”, or to photos that are already enjoying significant viral success on the platform.
Negative consequences
This automated classification is the subject of criticism, in particular from associations or researchers, who believe that it gives a lot of visibility to harmful content. The documents revealed at the end of 2021 by the former Facebook employee Frances Haugen showed, in particular, that the content published by celebrities was strongly highlighted in the thread of Internet users, and could have negative consequences for the well-being of some users, and especially female users, of Instagram .
All social networks today use a content ranking algorithm by default. In 2016, when Instagram dropped the timeline, the company justified the change by the fact that “Given the scale that Instagram is taking, it becomes difficult to see all the photos and videos shared there. This means that you might be missing some posts that you would have been very interested in.[e] ».