As a very radical step that questions the very principle of contemporary social media, one of the most popular in the world has just declared a total redesign of its core user experience and shift back to its traditional algorithmic-driven feed into an entirely new and transparent AI-based Chronological Feed.
The release of the announcement at a much-hyped developer conference also unveiled an array of next-generation creator monetisation features that marked a significant change in the approach of the company to restore the trust of its users and create a more authentic online atmosphere.
The new initiative will revolve around the deplatforming of the opaque, engagement-seeking algorithm that the platform has been operating on for almost ten years. Customers have long complained that feeds displayed viral content and sponsored posts above updates of friends and family, which frequently gave a sense of being manipulated and out of control.
The new system is called ChronoLogic, and it is based on a sophisticated artificial intelligence, but it is not meant to curate, but to organise a strictly chronological stream of content intelligently.
ChronoLogic: Matrimonies between Time and Place
The “AI-Powered Chronological Feed” does not necessarily harken back to the early times of social media. Although all the posts will be presented in the strict reverse-chronological order in accordance with the time the post was posted, the AI system will attempt to address the major limitation of such a system, i.e., information overload and context collapse.
The intelligence works in a number of major ways. First, it will automatically bundle like content, like several photos of the same event or a lengthy series of comments on an already popular post, into cohesive bundles. This stops one user or occurrence from taking over the whole feed whilst preserving the integrity of the timeline.
Second, the AI offers fine user-controllable contextual cues. An iconic element next to a post can either mean that it is related to a close contact that the user often engages with, or it can label a news article with a credibility rating by independent fact-checking agencies.
The most noteworthy one is an “Ambient Summary” option, under which the AI is able to come up with a one-line summary of a rapidly developing news item, enabling users to get acquainted with the situation of several posts on the same issue as opposed to being spoon-fed a single, algorithmically-selected piece of information. The company has highlighted that all the context created by AI will be marked and can be turned off by the user, so the timeline will always be a user-controlled experience.
A Different Economic Model of the Content Creators
The platform also launched its most generous and ambitious creator monetisation program to date, in addition to the feed revolution. The system, dubbed the Creator Nexus, is aimed at giving direct incentives based on the value the creator adds to the platform to the point of advertising revenue shares.
There are three pillars that are revolutionary in the program. The first is a “Micro-Subscription” model, in which creators can provide premium content, including exclusive videos, in-depth tutorials, or access to a community for a small monthly fee as low as one dollar, with the platform only receiving a small administrative fee.
The second pillar is an artificial intelligence Fund. Rather than spend money to boost their content to the algorithmic feeds of non-followers, creators can now use money in a central pool to get the platform to use its advanced AI tools.
A creator might, for example, use some money to automatically create and subtitle their video in a dozen languages and reach their organic reach significantly without regular advertising. A travel vlogger will be able to have his/her real-time video log translated and subtitled to his/her global viewers immediately.
The third and most talked about is a Direct Idea Marketplace. It enables creators to publish content series or community idea concepts, and their followers can directly finance the creation of the idea in a Kickstarter-like system built into the platform.
The content is created by the creator once the fund is secured and is shared with all his/her followers, with the backers being given special consideration. This changes the creator-fan relationship to a collaborative partnership as opposed to a passive consumption model.
Implications and Competitive Response in the Industry
Such a strategic shift is a direct reaction to user fatigue on algorithmic feeds and regulatory pressure over social media platform amplification, which is growing. The company is also making a bet on authenticity as its next competitive advantage by returning control to the user.
The transition will cause unimaginable strain on other competing platforms, which are still entirely dependent on their opaque, engagement-based algorithms to maximise the rate of advertising income and user screen time.
The analyst fraternity is initially divided yet curious. Others doubt that a chronological feed could maintain the interest of users as much as it does with the traditional feed, which is likely to affect the advertising rates in the short term.
Some other people view it as a stroke of genius that conforms to a wider technology movement of user agency and open AI. Having been successful, it might lead to a reconsideration of the essence of social media experience by the industry, or competitors would need to follow suit, or they would be labelled as manipulative.
The new monetisation tools are what can be a gold rush for makers. The fact that one can earn money by means of direct fan support and artificial intelligence-based tools, and not relying solely on the whims of an algorithm, presents a more reliable and foreseeable career prospect. It would likely start a massive exodus of talented employees to the platform, since creators would be able to find a more stable and fair environment to form their communities.
The announcement is one of the biggest corrections in course of the history of social media. It is an implicit acknowledgement that the process of seeking endless involvement by algorithmic curation might have come to an end with respect to society and practice.
The company is not merely introducing new features by gambling on the future in which user choice and creator empowerment are the most crucial elements; the company is trying to re-specify the social contract between platforms, users, and the creators, who provide the platforms with lifeblood. The achievements or failures of this grandiose vision will surely determine the following decade of online interaction.
