Would a Following feed give you a better view of the world?

Start with the job you want the feed to do.

If you want to catch up with people and organisations you chose, a view limited to followed accounts may fit that job. If you want to find unfamiliar work, suggestions can serve a different purpose. Neither purpose tells you whether an individual post is accurate.

Imagine following a local library and a neighbourhood garden. A suggested account about space might be welcome discovery on one visit and an interruption on another. The difference is your purpose, not proof that either feed is universally better.

Followed accounts and newest first are different settings.

The first choice limits who can supply a post. The second decides which available post goes first. In the example, you can keep the same accounts and change the order, or remove a suggested account without changing the ordering rule.

This matters when you encounter a promise to turn off an algorithm. Ask which operation changes. The Australian announcement concerns personally recommended content in a default feed. Its final detailed requirements still need to be specified.

What can you check in your own account?

1. Find the view. Look for a description of followed accounts, favourites or recent posts. Read what the service says it includes. Meta’s 2022 descriptions establish that such views have existed; they do not verify today’s button positions on your phone.
2. Check the order. Does the service expressly say newest first, or is it ranking posts another way? Do not infer the answer from the word Following alone.
3. Reopen the app. Check whether the view stays selected. A one session observation does not establish behaviour across devices or future updates.
4. Separate other controls. Look at advertising and data preferences on their own terms. A feed choice does not itself prove those settings changed.

A familiar source can still be wrong.

Following an account establishes a relationship, not the truth of its next post. A newest first order establishes recency, not importance. For a consequential claim, open the original record and check its date, scope and what it actually establishes.

The US election experiment is a useful caution. Its chronological feeds changed the information people encountered, including increasing exposure to content classified as untrustworthy on both platforms. The researchers did not find significant changes in measured political attitudes over the three month period. That finding is specific to the studied people, platforms and period.

You can prefer a feed for the control it gives you without claiming it solves every information problem. The useful question is whether it helps you do what you came to do, while leaving you able to check the claims that matter.