All Social Networks Should Let Us Take Back Control From the Algorithm

Twitter recently introduced a button that lets users sort Tweets in a way that makes sense (read: chronologically), then quickly switch back to the default “popularity” sorting. The thing is, why can’t all networks do this?

Victoria Song, writing for Gizmodo, made the case today that Instagram should “steal Twitter’s sparkle button” and I couldn’t agree more.

While Instagram may not buck parent company Facebook’s love of algorithmic feeds, it should do exactly that (and Facebook should do it too!)—calm down the masses and give us a goddamn sparkle button. Stop trying to force side-scrolling feeds and other junk features. Just lovingly gank Twitter’s sparkle button. After all, it worked with ripping off Snapchat’s stories.

Currently, Instagram pushes stuff from accounts you interact with most to the top of your feed. While that’s cool because it’s probably content you’ll dig, what about all the cool stuff you’re missing out on because it’s buried at the “bottom” if your feed? You don’t get to interact with that stuff because you never see it, which in my mind puts your account in some sort of perpetual cycle of seeing the same crap all the time and missing out on new stuff. Naturally, the solution there is to offer a quick-sorting button to switch between the two types of feeds. There’s so much value in that.

But really, why stop with just Instagram? Facebook should do it. And any other network that decides I should see what’s “popular” instead of looking at things in the order they’re presented. I mean, you can append “?sk=h_chr” to the end of the URL in the browser (like this) to get Facebook in chronological order, but that’s only helpful on the web. A little button to toggle between the two types of feeds in the mobile apps would be where it’s at.

RELATED: Why The Chronological Facebook Feed is Never Coming Back

Truthfully, that’s where the biggest issue lies now that Twitter is giving users what they want—with Instagram and Facebook. But all networks should do this, even niche ones. Like Strava! I’d like to see when my friends are active in order; why show me rides from three days ago instead of the ones from this morning? It’s stupid.

Anyway, the point is that Twitter’s “sparkle” button is a great idea, offering users a fast and efficient way to sort content the way they want to see it. Seems like something that would make a lot of sense on all networks—not just Twitter.