Meta’s Algorithmic Sorting to be Optional in EU

Meta has announced that it will soon give EU users the option to turn off algorithmic sorting when using Facebook and Instagram. This means users will receive less personalised content suggestions, instead seeing posts in chronological order.

To comply with the upcoming EU Digital Services Act, Meta will be providing more options to users when it comes to the algorithms they encounter. The purpose of the regulation is to empower users and give them control over how their personal data is used.

For the users, they will now have the option to see content unfiltered by Meta’s predictive systems. 

The company explained it as “on Facebook and Instagram, users will have the option to view Stories and Reels only from people they follow, ranked in chronological order, newest to oldest. They will also be able to view Search results based only on the words they enter, rather than personalised specifically to them based on their previous activity and personal interests”.

Social Media Today says that this will “likely be music to the ears of many social media users, who view algorithmic ranking as, essentially, interference, and a means to influence what you see in each app”.

However, it also states that algorithmic-free scrolling in many cases harms the user experience, “In other words, you probably won’t like Facebook or Instagram as much”.

What do you think? Should all social platforms have the option for algorithm-free scrolling?