Australia’s government on Tuesday announced what it called “world-leading” reforms that would require social media platforms to give users the option to opt out of algorithmic feeds under a policy dubbed "my feed, my way." On the same day, a journalist used a little-known Instagram feature that temporarily turns off the app’s recommendation algorithm to see how the experience compares.
The writer said they have a fondness for the algorithm, calling it a “perfectly curated window” that surfaces videos and memes tailored to their tastes. Yet, when they switched the algorithm off for 24 hours they were confronted with a different experience — including an unexpected clip of a woman spilling a bucket of eels on a Chinese train — and a sense of what social media felt like before pervasive personalization.
The experiment was framed as a brief trip back to an earlier era of social platforms, one the writer described as before "everything on the internet was an ad." By comparing the curated, personalized feed with a chronological or less algorithmically driven view, the test aimed to illuminate how recommendation systems shape what users see and how they use social apps.
The Australian reforms have reignited debate about user choice, platform responsibility and the role of algorithms in curating online content. Platforms that already offer limited options to modify recommendation settings now face new regulatory pressure to make such choices more widely available. For users, the Instagram test provided a practical demonstration of how different feed models can alter the tone and content of the social media experience.
While the long-term effects of any policy changes remain to be seen, the episode highlights a growing public interest in giving users more control over algorithmic curation — and a nostalgia among some for a less commercial, more chronological internet.