Petition

UPDATE: People Really Want to Keep Instagram Chronological

This post was originally published on March 17, 2016.

A petition to keep Instagram’s feed chronological is currently one of the fastest growing on Change.org.

The petition, which asks Instagram to keep its feed chronological instead making it algorithmic, has garnered nearly 112,000 signatures in the 24 hours since it was launched more than 302,000 signatures since it was launched 12 days ago.

It’s been signed by people in more than 175 countries 200 countries, including Bangladesh, Luxembourg, Iceland, and Kenya, among many others.

A little more than 58% 52% of the signatures coming from the United States. The other countries with the highest signature counts were the United Kingdom (9%), Australia (8% 9%), and Canada (6% 5%).

There was a large spike in signatures — more than 65,000 — on Sunday, March 27, which was likely a response to a rumor that the algorithm is going into effect this week (it’s not).

Instagram, a photo and video-centric social network,  announced the change to its feed — which will make it similar to Facebook’s News Feed — in a blog post on March 15:

“The order of photos and videos in your feed will be based on the likelihood you’ll be interested in the content, your relationship with the person posting and the timeliness of the post. As we begin, we’re focusing on optimizing the order — all the posts will still be there, just in a different order.”

Instagram closed the post by saying that it would listen to user feedback as it rolls out the new experience in the coming months. Petition starter Sarah Heard from Australia took that to heart and started her own petition to #KeepInstagramChronological.

“Is this something that the community really wants?” she wrote. “At the very least, shouldn’t the community be able to opt-in, rather than having it mandated that this is how we will now see our feed?”

Many people answered Sarah’s questions in the petition comments, where they also explained that they use Instagram is because it doesn’t have an algorithm like Facebook. There was also a contingent of small business owners who use the app and feel that an algorithm will mess with their business model.


In the past, Instagram’s parent company, Facebook, has responded to Change.org petitions about its products.

Last March, Catherine Weingarten and Endangered Bodies started a petition asking Facebook to remove “feeling fat” as a status option. Facebook responded after 16,000 signatures and removed the status.

“We’ll continue to listen to feedback as we think about ways to help people express themselves on Facebook,” wrote the company in its response to the petition.

What do you think? Take a look at some of the petition comments and weigh in on whether you want to keep Instagram chronological.

 

Here are some other petitions that might interest you:

 

 

Written by
Change.org
March 28, 2016 5:30 pm