European Meta users will soon have more ways to avoid algorithmic recommendations on Facebook and Instagram. In blog post published on Tuesday, August 22ndNick Clegg, the president of public affairs at the parent company of the two social networks, announced that internet users in the European Union (EU) will now be able to see “Reels” and “stories” – a video or short sequence of videos, respectively. inspired by TikTok and Snapchat, as well as search results without any algorithmic processing.

“For example, on Facebook and Instagram, users will only be able to see Stories and Reels posted by people they follow, listed in order [anté]chronologically, from youngest to oldestmore details Nick Clegg. They will also be able to see search results based only on the words they use, instead of personalized results based on their past activity and interests. »

Meta’s goal: to comply with the European Digital Services Act (DSA) adopted in April 2022, the first measures of which take effect on Friday. This requires large platforms to allow users to opt out of personalized content recommendations. For the same reason, the social network TikTok also announced at the beginning of August that it will now be possible for its users in the EU choose to view popular videos in a specific region rather than algorithmic content selection.

“More than 1,000 people currently work at DSA” Meta, assures Nick Clegg, to “Develop solutions to respond to [ses] requirements “. In addition, Meta had already introduced changes to its personalized recommendations, but they only applied to news feeds, not to reels and stories: in March 2022, Instagram thus (re)introduced a purely chronological news feed, which was commonplace on the social network. network from 2010 to 2016, while Facebook had created a “post feed” tab in July of the same year. This allows, for example, to display only the content of your “friends” or “pages” followed in a social network, in chronological order.