Desperate to reinvent the wheel as it weathers a Senate investigation and cedes more and more of its young user base to platforms like TikTok, Instagram will once again give users the option to browse “a version” of its chronological feed after years of utilizing an algorithmically-generated one.
Instagram head Adam Mosseri shared the news during a Senate subcommittee hearing on Wednesday, where he was repeatedly questioned on a number of topics related to a whistleblower’s recent allegation that the platform knowingly profits off of an online environment that’s toxic for its teenage users.
The concession about the chronological feed seems mostly like chum for sharks, especially considering how widely-reviled the algorithmically-sorted feed has been amongst Instagram’s users throughout the years. First introduced in 2016, the algorithmic feed bumps up posts by users whose content you liked and commented on more frequently, and was later updated to also include “recommended posts” from users whose accounts you might not have even been following.
Instagram was quick to point out that it is “creating new options — providing people with more choices so they can decide what works best for them,” while it is definitely “not switching everyone back to a chronological feed.” Mosseri told Senate committee members that the company is “targeting the first quarter of next year” to launch the new chronological feed.
