Here’s Why Instagram Users Are Protesting The Latest Update

Instagram users are protesting the photo-sharing app’s recent announcement that it will no longer display photos in chronological order but through an algorithm similar to the one that powers Facebook’s News Feed.

“People miss on average 70 percent of their feeds,” the social network explained in a blog post. “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…We’re going to take time to get this right and listen to your feedback along the way. You’ll see this new experience in the coming months.”

Users have taken that call for feedback seriously. So far, more than 250,000 people have signed and shared a Change.org petition via the hashtag #KeepInstagramChronological, arguing the change is “certainly not something that small business[es] will want! 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?” The petition needs 300,000 signatures.

Even TV star Melissa Joan Hart echoed that reservation (she opened a candy store called “SweetHarts”). She also joined other users worldwide in calling on their followers to turn on notifications for the people that they follow so that they don’t miss any posts. That can be done by clicking the gray ellipses on the upper right hand corner of a user’s post and selecting “Turn On Post Notifications.” Many others are posting the instructions to turn off “auto-updates” in Apple’s App Store.

Others don’t think this movement is the answer, dismissing these pleas as “shameless plugs”: