INSTAGRAM’S VIDEO SHUFFLE AFTER KARDASHIAN CRITICISM
It’s been all change at Instagram in a couple of ways over the last week.
First it was announced that the IG app was to change so as to show users their Reels feed on launch by default, and that a lot more stuff would appear in there from accounts users are following.
The Reels feed is a clone of TikTok’s functionality – an endless scroll of short videos selected by an algorithm according to what it thinks you are interested in. The switch, which had begun rolling out slowly, was not well-received. Instagram superstars Kylie Jenner and her sister Kim Kardashian, both with more than 300m followers each, posted messages begging for Instagram to return to being Instagram. Less influential users were just as unimpressed.
So, the boss of the platform Adam Mosseri announced a couple of days later that the changes were being rolled back, and users would once again see their feed of pics and videos.
But, he also said the change would be temporary and would give him and his team time to puzzle out how to make the switch to TikTokstyle video work for the platform and its users.
Meanwhile, those users continued to insist that what they really want is a feed of pics from people they follow, ordered chronologically, with no tinkering from an algorithm. If they want a TikTok-style feed, they say, they’ll download TikTok.