Modern Artifact
The platform was touted as a personalized AI-powered newsfeed
Instagram co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger announced on Tuesday the launch of their new venture, Artifact. The app was touted as a tailored news feed powered by artificial intelligence, according to Platformer.
The co-founders, who left Facebook in 2018 amid tensions with their parent company, shared the roll out on Instagram. Krieger wrote, “Excited to announce what @kevin and I have been working on with a talented team the past year+ — Artifact, a personalized news feed driven by the latest in artificial intelligence.” He added that while they are gradually letting people onto the app as the company scales up, people can also join a waitlist.
Working in a similar way to TikTok, according to Platformer, Artifact providers users with an initial feed of popular articles chosen from a range of publications big and small. Tapping on articles of interest will prompt Artifact to deliver similar stories in the future, in the same way that watching TikTok videos fine tunes the algorithm with each user session.
Artifact beta users are currently testing two features: One is a feed with articles posted by people you follow, along with their comments on each post; the second is a direct-message inbox where you can privately discuss articles.
The launch follows a period of uncertainty and controversy at Twitter under the administration of Twitter owner Elon Musk, who has reinstated extremist figures to Twitter, granting near-blanket amnesty to prominent neo-Nazi’s, white nationalists, and conspiracy theorists. Most recently, Musk reinstated the account of QAnon conspiracy theorist Ron Watkins and neo-Nazi Andrew Anglin.
Unlike other social platforms that attempt to keep a facade of neutralism, Systrom made it clear that Artifact would be making their own judgement calls and remove content that promotes falsehoods, per the report.
“One of the issues with technology recently has been a lot of these companies’ unwillingness to make subjective judgments in the name of quality and progress for humanity,” Systrom told Platformer. “Right? Just make the hard decision.”