Instagram Is Trying to Stop a Global Panic Over Its Algorithmic Feed

Instagram had one loud and clear message for its users on Monday: Calm down.

The Facebook-owned photo and video-sharing app "assured" users Monday afternoon that it will let them know if and when any changes to the feed are "broadly" rolled out.

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

The assurance came only two weeks after Instagram said it would roll out an algorithmic timeline over the "coming months" in an effort to help users see the photos and videos they're more likely to care about.

This timeline, instead of merely being listed in reverse chronological order with the most recent item appearing at the top of your feed, will instead display photos and videos based on your interests and how you interact (with likes, comments, etc.) with other photos and videos.

Naturally, the March 15 announcement of the algorithmic feed was quickly pounced upon by Instagram users, with many of them suggesting it would ruin the service for them.

@instagram consider just not changing it at all maybe?
— ➡⬇↘✊ (@RefPink) March 28, 2016

Of course, Instagram would hardly be the only popular social media platform that uses an algorithmic feed. Facebook's all-powerful feed takes into account all sorts of data, including what you like, what you share, and what you comment on to determine what items appear in your News Feed. Twitter has recently gotten into the act as well, using an algorithm to determine what tweets appear at the top of your timeline. I personally thought Twitter's efforts were useful, but at least they're optional—even if Twitter initially claimed the algorithmic timeline would not be made the service's default.

Instagram's March 28 tweet appears to be aimed at quelling misinformation currently roiling through the platform erroneously suggesting the algorithmic feed would be enabled tomorrow. (Instagram claims it has "weeks, or even months" of testing ahead of the rollout.) In fact, a search of the hashtag "notifications" turns up post after post of people instructing Instagram users to enable notifications so they don't miss posts from their friends.