A couple years after Instagram deeply annoyed many of its users by presenting posts out of chronological order, the Facebook-owned platform has finally taken some of the ensuing criticism into account.
Instagram announced Thursday that it would make it more likely that newer posts will appear at the top of users’ feeds. It’s not quite a return to a chronological feed, but it might satisfy some people—and it’s an acknowledgement that Instagram’s algorithms weren’t taking all the right factors into account when determining what users want to see first.
“With these changes, your feed will feel more fresh, and you won’t miss the moments you care about,” the company said.
It also responded to feedback from people who don’t like being continually thrown back to the top of their feed every time it refreshes, making them lose their place.
“Today we’re testing a ‘New Posts’ button that lets you choose when you want to refresh, rather than it happening automatically,” Instagram said in a blog post. “Tap the button and you’ll be taken to new posts at the top of feed—don’t tap, and you’ll stay where you are.”
Instagram also said it would be announcing further tweaks to its feed over the next few months.
The Facebook-owned image-sharing platform has more than 800 million users. Platforms such as Instagram need to be very cautious when making significant changes to the way they present posts—as Snapchat recently learned.
When Snapchat decided to create two separate streams for regular people’s posts and those of celebrities and brands earlier this year, its users were outraged. Pointed criticism (over Twitter) from reality star Kylie Jenner trimmed the value of parent company Snap by $1 billion, pretty much immediately.
