My Feed My Way will make Instagram feeds overwhelming says Adam Mosseri

14 September 2026

Ange Lavoipierre, writing for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), quoting Adam Mosseri, Head of Instagram (IG):

“If you go to a chronological feed, it ends up getting overwhelmed with content from companies, brands, and publishers. Creators get drowned out, and then your friends get drowned out even more.”

These are the words of the Head of Instagram. Can it be Mosseri has no idea how the platform he oversees, works?

Australia’s proposed My Feed, My Way laws give local IG users a choice. They can either see content posted only by the people they follow, in their main feed, or elect to see what the algorithm presents.

If IG users choose to only see what the people they follow publish, how is anyone supposed to see what is posted by “companies, brands, and publishers”, if they’re not following them?

Of course creators — a dubious use of the term in the first place, given the quality of some of their content — who sit squarely in the companies, brands, publishers, and influencers category, will be drowned out: that’s the idea.

As for friends, how do they “get drowned out even more”, if they are the only people an IG user follows? Their content is the entirety of what anyone opting for the “friends only” feed will see. With the possible exception of ads, I imagine.

But if someone is only following two people, both of whom maybe only post something twice daily, how could they feel their feed was overwhelming?

Mosseri is clearly unhappy with the proposed My Feed, My Way laws.

So displeased that he seems to be losing sight of what’s what. He continues to believe the platform is not addictive, while also conceding IG “is too complicated”. In saying that, Mosseri is trying to suggest adding a button somewhere, giving users the choice of what they see, will clutter — clutter even further — IG’s interface.

The last time I looked at the IG app, before deleting it from my phone, there was an option to select “following” or “favourites”. In theory, choosing “following” meant someone would mainly see posts only from those whom they followed. This was only somewhat effective though, provided another option, “snooze suggested posts”, was enabled.

Suggested posts, being content by the aforementioned companies, brands, publishers, and influencers, were slipped into an IG member’s main feed, if the algorithm deemed this was somehow of interest. But the “snooze suggested posts” setting only did so for thirty-days at a time.

Disabling suggested posts also required drilling down through several levels of the settings menu to find. Indeed Mosseri is correct when he says IG “is too complicated”. The Australian government proposal aims to make this a one-step, lasting, action.

Mosseri can take consolation though from Anika Wells, the Australian communications minister, who thinks, as I wrote last week, most IG users will stick with the algorithm:

“The reality is that lots of people will want to choose the algorithm.”

Anyone hoping an unintended, or unspoken consequence, of the My Feed, My Way laws, would result in people spending less time looking at screens, will be disappointed.

But to each their own. I spend quite a bit of time using my phone, while say on a public transport trip. Typically I’ll be reading or sending emails, organising work schedules, or reading news.

And I’m often grateful for the chance to do so during so-called downtime, as it leaves time for doing nothing later on. But I don’t look at any Meta social media/network apps, as I removed them.

But I’m still at a loss to recall what I used to do on a train trip during the pre-smartphone era. Likely I starred out the window and daydreamed, something I still do once I’ve finished using my phone.

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