Meta’s Instagram chief Adam Mosseri thinks a chronological feed would overwhelm users more than the algorithm-curated one.
Mosseri made the comments at a press briefing in Australia, where the government has just proposed giving social media users the option to switch to a non-algorithm-driven feed. Under the new proposal, called My Feed, My Way, social media platforms will be required to give every user the option to see only posts from the people they follow, rather than what the algorithm curates for them, or face up to 109.2 million Australian dollars in fines.
Once the default setting, reverse chronological feeds have given way to hyperpersonalized and increasingly AI-driven feeds on social media platforms, including Meta’s Instagram and Facebook. These feeds combine content from all corners of the platform, then rank it in a way that ensures the user keeps scrolling, and the company continues driving profit.
Mosseri claims that only a “very vocal minority” prefer chronological feeds over the algorithmically-curated feeds.
“If you go to a chronological feed, it ends up getting overwhelmed with content from companies, brands, and publishers,” Mosseri told reporters, per ABC. That’s because, he claims, your friends post less than influencers or brands.
“What happens is people become a bit less interested in the experience and they use it a lot less, which then means that there’s less reach to go around, and people start to get more and more mad about the fact that their reach is going down because the overall pie gets smaller,” Mosseri said, according to The Guardian.
Mosseri has unparalleled insight into the Instagram experience, so his words bear weight. But decreasing user engagement already seems to be the end goal with the regulatory push.
We don’t know much about how the algorithm, especially Instagram’s, exactly decides what gets ranked where in the feed. But critics have accused algorithms across social media platforms, including TikTok and the Musk-owned X, of favoring extreme, harmful, and often hateful content, putting vulnerable users like minors in danger, and leading to intense algorithm-driven polarization. So those opposing algorithmic feeds being the default on social media platforms are not necessarily worried that algorithm-driven hyperpersonalization is making social media platforms boring or undesirable; the fear is that this hyperpersonalization is making the platform perhaps too engaging, thus exacerbating other problems tied to social media platforms.
The algorithmic feed issue was also brought up in Meta’s $23 billion court settlement with 29 states that was announced last month. The tech giant was being sued for endangering minors on its social media platforms, including via addictive design features that exacerbated mental health problems. Meta denies the claim, but still agreed to a series of preventive actions, which include giving American teens the option to switch out of the algorithmic feed to a chronological one.
Instagram already does have an option to switch to a feed where users can only see posts from accounts they follow, but critics claim that switch is not well-advertised by the company. Mosseri told Australian media that Instagram is not knowingly hiding the toggle, but “there’s definitely room to improve the discoverability of that.”
Mosseri is also leading an initiative to incorporate more user feedback into the Instagram algorithm. The Instagram chief’s remarks came at a press briefing unveiling the Australian version of Algo Talks, a series meant to illuminate the black box of algorithm-driven ranking and help users understand how they can control the content they see on the app. Instagram’s algorithm is driven primarily by an LLM, and users can currently inform this system of their likes and dislikes through the Your Algorithm button on the Explore or Reels section of the app.
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