Mosseri Defends the Algorithm: What It Means for Marketers
Adam Mosseri says scrapping Instagram's algorithmic feed would make the app worse. Here's what the fight over ranking means for your reach.
Instagram head Adam Mosseri has publicly argued against getting rid of algorithmic feeds, telling reporters during a visit to Australia that stripping out recommendations would leave users with a less engaging app. For marketers, the short version is that reach on Instagram will continue to be decided by a ranking system rather than by follower count or posting time. Nothing changes in your content calendar this week — but the fact that a platform boss now has to defend ranking out loud tells you where the regulatory wind is blowing.
The remarks were reported by Social Media Today, which covered Mosseri’s comments to Australian press.
What “the algorithm” actually is
When people say “the algorithm,” they mean a recommendation system: software that scores every piece of content it could show you and orders your feed by predicted interest. It is not one rule. It is a stack of predictions — how likely are you to watch this, save it, send it to a friend, or leave the app in irritation.
The alternative people usually propose is a chronological feed: newest posts first, from accounts you follow, full stop. That is how Instagram worked until 2016. Instagram brought chronological browsing back as an option in 2022 through the “Following” and “Favourites” views, but the default feed — and all of Reels — stays ranked.
Mosseri’s position is that the default matters. Most people never change a default, and an unranked default would mean showing them content the system already predicts they do not want. His claim is essentially an engagement claim: less relevance, less time spent, worse product.
Why anyone wants to switch it off
The push to kill or constrain algorithmic feeds comes from three directions, and it is worth separating them because they lead to very different rules.
- Child safety. The argument that recommendation systems push teenagers toward harmful content faster than they would find it themselves. Australia has become the sharpest test case here after its minimum-age law for social media accounts.
- Consumer choice. The European Union’s Digital Services Act (DSA) — the bloc’s platform rulebook — already requires the largest platforms to offer at least one feed option that is not based on profiling users. That is a choice mandate, not a ban.
- Addiction and attention. A broader political argument that optimising for engagement is itself the harm, regardless of what the content is.
Mosseri’s answer speaks mainly to the third. He is not saying ranking has no downsides; he is saying an unranked feed is not the fix, because a worse product does not automatically make a safer one.
Why the argument is both self-interested and partly correct
Take the self-interest first. Ranking is what allows Instagram to show your content to people who do not follow you, which is what makes Reels competitive with TikTok, which is what keeps ad inventory growing. A chronological default would shrink the supply of impressions Meta can sell against. Of course the head of Instagram defends it.
But the counter-argument has a real flaw. Chronological feeds do not remove editorial power; they hand it to whoever posts most often. In practice, purely chronological systems reward volume and reward accounts that already have large followings. That is not obviously better for users, and it is measurably worse for small brands and new creators, who currently get discovered precisely because a recommendation system is willing to test their content on strangers.
There is also a middle path that rarely gets discussed: keeping ranking but changing what it optimises for — satisfaction surveys, “time well spent” signals, or reduced amplification for specific categories. That is where most serious regulation is likely to land.
What would actually change for brands
It helps to think in scenarios rather than in headlines.
| Scenario | What it would mean for your brand |
|---|---|
| Status quo — ranked default continues | Reach stays driven by sends, saves and watch time. Follower count keeps mattering less. |
| Chronological option offered more prominently | Minimal impact. Few users switch, but your most loyal followers may see more of your posts. |
| Non-personalised feed mandated as default in some markets | Discovery collapses in that market. Follower base and posting frequency become the whole game. |
| Ranking retained but tuned for safety or satisfaction | Volatility. Content categories get reweighted with little notice — the most likely real-world outcome. |
The fourth row is the one to plan for. Marketers have already lived through it repeatedly: the Reels push, the reduction in political content recommendations, the periodic demotion of reposted or watermarked material. None of those were announced as algorithm bans. They simply moved reach.
The India angle
India matters disproportionately in this debate because of scale. Widely reported estimates put India’s Instagram user base above 350 million, making it the platform’s largest single market by users — larger than the United States. Any global change to feed ranking lands hardest here in absolute terms.
India’s own regulatory direction is closer to the European model than the Australian one. The Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 requires verifiable parental consent for users under 18 and restricts behavioural advertising and tracking aimed at children, with implementation rules rolling out through 2025 and 2026. That is a constraint on personalisation inputs rather than a ban on ranking — which in practice means a less precise algorithm for younger audiences, not no algorithm.
For an Indian brand running influencer campaigns at ₹20,000–₹2,00,000 per post, the risk is not that the feed disappears. It is that the targeting quality behind your paid amplification quietly degrades for younger cohorts while your cost per result creeps up.
What this means for you
- Treat algorithmic reach as rented, not owned. Build at least one channel you control — email, WhatsApp broadcast, or your own site. If a ranking change halved your Instagram reach next month, that owned channel is your entire fallback.
- Optimise for sends and saves, not likes. Every plausible version of Instagram’s ranking — current or reformed — values content people forward to someone specific. Likes are the cheapest signal and the least protected.
- Write captions people could search. Instagram’s in-app search and Google both index caption text. Search-driven discovery survives feed changes because it does not depend on a feed.
- Give followers a reason to use “Favourites.” If chronological options do gain prominence, the accounts users have deliberately marked will win. Ask for it once a quarter, not every post.
- Stop building strategy on a single format. Brands that went all-in on Reels in 2022 learned this the hard way. Spread across Reels, carousels and Stories so a reweighting costs you a slice, not the whole pie.
- Watch Australia as the test market. Whatever compliance mechanism gets built there tends to become the template offered to other regulators, including India’s.
Frequently asked questions
Is Instagram getting rid of its algorithm?
No. Instagram head Adam Mosseri argued against eliminating algorithmic feeds, saying it would make the experience less engaging for users. No change to Instagram’s ranked default feed has been announced.
Can I already use a chronological Instagram feed?
Yes. Instagram offers “Following” and “Favourites” views that show posts in reverse-chronological order from accounts you follow. They are opt-in, and the ranked feed remains the default.
Would a chronological feed help small brands?
Usually the opposite. Chronological feeds only show content from accounts a user already follows, so they reward existing audience size and posting frequency. Ranking is what lets a small account’s post reach people who have never heard of it.
How should marketers prepare for a feed change?
Build owned channels such as email and WhatsApp, optimise content for shares and saves rather than likes, write captions that work in search, and avoid depending on one format. These steps hold their value whether or not the ranking rules change.
