Instagram users weren’t all too happy with the company this weekend, as countless users took to the image sharing platform to voice their concerns over the implementation of the algorithmic feed, and to beg users to switch on notifications for their posts.
Earlier this month, Instagram announced that its dropping the logical chronological layout for a system that displays posts that the user will likely find important. This is effectively the method used by Facebook to display posts. As a result, a swathe of users have asked followers to “turn on notifications” fearing that their posts will be dropped from their follower’s feeds entirely.
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While enabling notifications will allow users to keep track of their most-loved accounts, they’ll also be pelted by notifications every single time that users post. From personal experience, that’s a massive annoyance.
Instagram, when explaining its motives for the change, claimed that users “miss on average 70 percent of their feeds” and because of this, they “often don’t see the posts [they] might care about the most.” But some people aren’t so sure.
Primary naysayer and Instagram darling Kylie Jenner — along with other celebs — noted that Instagram shouldn’t look for imaginary issues to solve. “If it’s not broke, don’t fix it – I don’t really understand it and there has to be another motive because you follow people for a reason,” she commented rather fittingly on a recent Instagram post.
The company this week tweeted that “nothing is changing” at the moment, but the company has previously mentioned that the new feed will be rolling out in the coming months.
We’re listening and we assure you nothing is changing with your feed right now. We promise to let you know when changes roll out broadly.
— Instagram (@instagram) March 28, 2016
How this will affect Instagram as a whole is debatable, but it’s clear that influential users, and those who just love it when you like their cat photos, are in a little bit of a panic.
