Reels, TikToks, Shorts, spotlights, whatever you want to call them, these short vertically scrolling videos are all the rage nowadays. What makes them stand out is the random and chaotic nature of them. However, Meta just announced that Instagram is going to bring a chronological feed for Reels, but it’s only in Europe.
When you’re scrolling through your feed of videos, you never know what you’re going to see next. You’ll be presented with a random feed of videos catered to your likes and interests. While this is true, you’ll still find some videos off the beaten path.
Instagram is bringing a chronological feed to Reels in Europe
The vertical-scrolling video feed is pretty much like most other social media or video feeds; they feed you content curated for you via an algorithm. This algorithm is tuned based on the stuff that you watch. However, Instagram is making a change in Europe.
Instead of being served content based on your habits, the app will give you a chronological feed. This means that you’ll see the Reels as they’re being posted to the app. You won’t only see the chronological feed on Instagram, but you’ll also see it on Facebook.
Instagram will also let you see Reels only from people who you follow. That’s something that many people will appreciate. Sometimes, you only want to browse videos from people who you follow and cut out the noise.
Why is this only happening in Europe?
Sorry to break the news to you, but Meta isn’t doing this out of the kindness of its heart; it had to. Europe introduced a new act called the Digital Services Act. This act compels companies to let people opt out of their personalized algorithms. In order for a company to give you recommended content, it needs to take data from you like your location. Also, companies need to keep an eye on what kind of content they watch.
When the user opts out of the service, then Meta can’t curate content for you. so, it’s left with giving us less personalized (but much better) feeds.