For the past several years, Facebook has been conducting what amounts to an A/B test on human society, using two different social media apps.
The first app in Facebook’s test has a maximalist design: It allows users to post lengthy status updates, with links to news articles, photos, videos and more. The app is designed as a giant megaphone, with an emphasis on public sharing and an algorithmic feed capable of sending posts rocketing around the world in seconds.
The second app in the test is more minimalist, designed for intimate sharing rather than viral broadcasting. Users of this app, many of whom have private accounts with modest followings, can post photos or videos, but external links do not work and there is no re-share button, making it harder for users to amplify one another’s posts.
The results of this test have been stark. The first app, Facebook, turned into a huge and unmanageable behemoth that swallowed the media industry, was exploited by hostile foreign actors, empowered autocrats, created the conditions for a global fake news epidemic and ultimately became a giant headache for its creators.
The second app, Instagram, has fared much better. It hasn’t been overrun with bogus news, it hasn’t been exploited to the same degree, and most users seem happy with it — especially young users, who vastly prefer it to Facebook.
Mark Zuckerberg has pledged to spend 2018 cleaning up Facebook, and ensuring that “our services aren’t just fun to use, but also good for people’s well-being.” He’s also pledged to deal with the scourge of fake news on Facebook, and do a better job of keeping bad actors at bay.
Good for him. But there may be a simpler fix here. Why doesn’t he make his beleaguered blue app more like Instagram, the Facebook-owned app that isn’t destabilizing society?
Last week, Facebook unveiled its latest attempt to rein in its flagship product. In an effort to curb false news, it announced it would be allowing Facebook users to rank news outlets by trustworthiness, and consider those scores when deciding which news stories to display in users’ feeds.
But this kind of minor algorithmic knob-fiddling may not be enough. Instead, Facebook should consider using what it’s learned with Instagram, which it acquired in 2012, to embark on a gut renovation.
If I were Zuckerberg, here are some Instagram lessons I’d be thinking about.
Lesson №1: Emphasize visuals. De-emphasize text.
First, and most obviously, Instagram is a visual medium. Photos and videos are the main event, and text, while present, is mostly confined to captions and comments. As a result, Instagram feels more intimate than Facebook, where photos and videos often sit alongside lengthy diatribes, restaurant check-ins and mundane status updates.
Research has shown that, in some cases, visual platforms can be good for us. One study, published by researchers at the University of Oregon in 2016, found that the use of image-based platforms like Instagram and Snapchat was associated with lower levels of loneliness among users, and higher levels of happiness and satisfaction, while text-based platforms had no correlation with improved mental health.
A heavily visual platform also makes a relatively poor conduit for breaking news and in-the-moment commentary, which might explain why Instagram often feels less exhausting than other social networks. (It also explains why last month, before I went on vacation, I deleted every social media app from my phone except Instagram — the only app I trusted not to ruin my beachside calm.)
Lesson №2: Rethink the share button.
One of Instagram’s most underrated virtues is that it has imposed structural limits on virality — the ability of a given post to spread beyond its intended audience. Unlike Twitter and Facebook, on Instagram there is no native sharing function, meaning that the reach of most Instagram posts is capped at the number of people who follow the user’s account. (There are ways to “regram” someone else’s photo using a third-party app, but they’re clunky, and relatively few people use them. Instagram also recently began showing users posts from people they don’t follow, a Facebook-inspired change that I’d argue is a mistake.)
A native share button has been tremendously useful for Facebook’s and Twitter’s growth. It has also allowed upstart media organizations like BuzzFeed and Upworthy to build enormous audiences by specializing in highly shareable stories. But ease of sharing has also allowed the loudest and most emotional voices to be rewarded with clicks — and attention. It’s this incentive structure that has allowed partisans and profiteers to hijack Facebook’s algorithms and spread divisive messages and false news to millions of people.
The easy virality of Facebook also seems to have made individual users more hesitant about opening up. That makes sense — it’s easier to share a selfie if you know it won’t accidentally find its way into the feeds of a million strangers.
Lesson №3: Ban links.
Instagram’s greatest structural advantage, though, may be a result of its decision to go mostly link-free. Links in Instagram captions and comments aren’t clickable, and while some users have found workarounds, the vast majority of Instagram posts aren’t meant to send users to outside websites. (The exceptions are ads, which can contain clickable links and are, not coincidentally, the most troubled part of Instagram’s platform.)
The walled-garden nature of Instagram has frustrated publishers, who want to send followers out to their websites, where the publishers can earn advertising money and “control the reader experience.” (It’s really just about the money.) But Instagram has wisely refused to give in, perhaps realizing that allowing links might turn the platform into a screeching bazaar, with publishers and pages all doing circus acts for clicks.