Meta announced that it will no longer “proactively recommend” political content when users were not following the account.
A number of users of popular social media platforms Instagram and Threads have expressed outrage at the decision to limit political content ahead of the 2024 presidential election by changing the settings of all users.
The Zuckerburg-owned platforms changed their algorithm settings, reportedly over the last 48 hours, to a default that limits political content, angering users who want to see political content and account-holders with political pages.
Meta announced part of the change on Feb. 9, saying that it will no longer “proactively recommend” political content when users were not following the account.
No restrictions would apply to accounts users already follow, Meta said at the time.
The algorithm change is in addition to the earlier change, and will have a much greater impact for many users that don’t notice it or know how to change their settings back to the way they were.
Political account holders of all affiliations posted their outrage on Instagram Saturday.
“We should all be outraged but this overstep,” independent journalist Jessica Reed Kraus wrote to her 1.2 million Instagram followers. “Censorship during peak campaign months is a direct threat to the [sic] democracy.”
Citizen journalist at “The Typical Liberal” Grant Godwin said: “Limiting political posts right before the 2024 election. Go figure. Share this everywhere and DM your favorite political accounts to let them know!”
The “political content” setting can be found under “content preferences” on Instagram, and can be changed from “limit” to “don’t limit.”
A spokesperson for Meta said about the change: “This announcement expands on years of work on how we approach and treat political content based on what people have told us they wanted. It does not impact posts from accounts people choose to follow; it impacts what the system recommends. And now, people are going to be able to control whether they would like to have these types of posts recommended to them.”
The exact timeline for the change was unclear, as well as the reason for the change.
By Jen Krausz
Read Full Article on TheEpochTimes.com
Here’s how you change it in your APP:
Go to your personal Instagram SETTINGS
Scroll to SETTINGS and PRIVACY
Scroll to CONTENT PREFERENCES
Scroll to POLITICAL CONTENT
Check on Don’t limit political content from people you don’t follow.
