News JVTech The creators of Instagram return to the charge with Artifact: a TikTok dedicated to current events
Published on 02/02/2023 at 11:25
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Social networks contribute to disinformation, it is a fact. But the brilliant minds of Instagram’s creators could remedy this problem by launching a brand new app that goes by the name of Artifact.
This is the story of two geniuses who created a social network…
In October 2010, two young engineers named Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger launched Instagram. The social network has become an absolute success, so much so that Facebook bought it in 2012 for several million dollars.. Its creators remained in charge of the project for a few years, before jumping ship in 2018, after alleged disagreements with Mark Zuckerberg. But now, today and five years later, the two men are preparing a new project.
Artifact. This is the name of the new mobile application which, selon The Platformer, will be “a kind of textual TikTok”. The idea of this project: offer a personalized news feed boosted by machine learning to learn from our areas of interest. The tool is currently in private beta, but you can request access to the preliminary version by entering your telephone number – with your country code (+33 for France) – on the official website of the project. This will add you to the waiting list and you will be notified when “your invitation” is ready. Note that the application is available for Android and iOS.
Artifact: an application to fight misinformation
People don’t watch the news anymore, so… Artifact seems to want to take advantage of the attraction of TikTok and other social networks to do well.‘Institut Reuters revealed in June 2022 that more and more young people between the ages of 18 and 24 were consuming more and more news stories via social media, not via digital media or news apps. Artifcat’s goal is therefore to use artificial intelligence to recommend content and news based on our habits..
However, Artifact will not be just a simple feed aggregator. Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger’s app will also be a real social network. 2 new features should soon appear: the first will display the articles published by the users you have chosen to follow; while the second will give users the possibility of exchanging by private message with their “friends”.
Artifact follows the evolution of social networks. As they explain in the columns of The Platformer, in the beginning, social networks showed you things that your friends thought were interesting (Facebook). Then they showed things based on who you followed (Twitter). We are now in the phase where they show you things that the algorithm thinks you might be interested in, whether they come from people you follow or not. This has been the revolution of the TikTok algorithm, and Artifact wants to do the same, but for text.
