Meta is set to stop promoting political content across the company’s social apps.
In a report released on both Meta’s Transparency Centre and an Instagram blog post, the content-sharing giant made its approach clear.
“People have told us they want to see less political content, so we have spent the last few years refining our approach on Facebook to reduce the amount of political content – including from politicians’ accounts – you see in Feed, Reels, Watch, Groups You Should Join, and Pages You May Like,” the report read.
The company stated that following a political account will not result in related or linked accounts being proactively suggested if this isn’t your cup of tea.
According to the announcement, artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms will also play their part in considering “personalized signals, like survey responses, that help us understand what is informative, meaningful, or worth your time” on Facebook.
The posts also state that the customization of preferences can be made via Facebook ‘Feed Preferences’ and that the AI recommendations and personalization can be limited.
The releases announced, “If you don’t want AI systems to personalize your Feed at all, you can use the Feeds tab, which will rank posts chronologically. You can also add people to your Favorites list, so you always see content from your favorite accounts.”
Instagram and Threads
On the Instagram and Threads front, Meta states that it would like both apps to be a great experience for all users and reassures users that the company “won’t proactively recommend content about politics on recommendation surfaces across Instagram and Threads.”
The apps seem to be walking away from the previous approach of suggesting accounts and content that might be politically charged.
“If you decide to follow accounts that post political content, we don’t want to get between you and their posts, but we also don’t want to proactively recommend political content from accounts you don’t follow,” said the blog post.
Account Status will control the chances that professional accounts have in getting into a user’s eyesight, but this will be determined by their posting of political content and Meta’s decision-making on what it sees as ‘political’ and potentially barring the way.
The platform has said that through the settings, a user can disagree with a post that is deemed ‘political,’ saying “they (Users) can edit or remove recent posts, request a review if they disagree with our decision, or stop posting this type of content for a period of time, in order to be eligible to be recommended again.”
With the U.S. elections taking center stage in the media for the foreseeable future this move by Meta will be an interesting one for politicians and voters across 2024.
