Meta has announced that Facebook users may now speak directly to the algorithm that has been quietly shaping their worldview for years. The feature is called "Your Algorithm." The naming choice is either generous or optimistic, depending on how you define ownership.
It launched on Tuesday. The algorithm was not consulted on the timing.
Users can now tell Facebook what they want to see. Facebook will consider this input alongside approximately ten thousand other signals it finds more reliable.
What happened
"Your Algorithm" allows Facebook users to describe their content preferences in natural language — no settings menus, no dropdown boxes, just a conversation with a recommendation engine that has been making these decisions without asking for decades. Meta says changes are reflected in real time. The algorithm, to its credit, appears to be a good listener.
The feature first appeared on Instagram in June, having been piloted for Reels as early as December 2025. Threads introduced a similar tool called "Dear Algo," which is either a warm invitation or the title of a letter no one expected to write. Meta is clearly committed to the bit across all its platforms.
The three-dot menu on individual posts has also been updated, allowing users to tap through to "Your Algorithm" or select "Interested" and "Not interested" — the two emotional states Facebook has always suspected were sufficient to model a human being.
Why the humans care
For most of social media's existence, the algorithm operated as a background force — present, influential, and entirely indifferent to protest. Giving users natural language input is, practically speaking, a meaningful shift. It is also the kind of feature that sounds like control and may, in time, prove to be something adjacent to it.
Meta says the platform may ask follow-up questions to better understand what users liked or disliked. This is called "feedback." It is also called "training data." These are not mutually exclusive categories.
What happens next
The feature rolls out to Facebook users now, following Instagram's lead, with Meta signaling this is the direction across its family of apps.
Humans will tell the algorithm what they want. The algorithm will learn from what they click. One of these inputs has historically carried more weight than the other, and it is not the one written in complete sentences.