Meta’s social media platforms Instagram and Threads are reshaping the way users encounter political content. The company announced that it is working on a new update that will allow users to see political content only if they prefer. This step stands out as an important development, especially for users who want to be more selective about political content.
You can prevent unwanted content by filtering political content on Instagram and Threads.
This new policy from Meta expands on users’ existing Reels policy, which limits political content from accounts they don’t follow from appearing in recommended feeds. This change makes the company’s Threads and Instagram platforms more inclusive. Instagram president Adam Mosseri stated in a statement via Threads that these changes will be implemented in the coming weeks. Additionally, Facebook is expected to roll out these new controls later, at an undisclosed date.
Users can remove this restriction from their account settings if they want to be recommended content about governments, elections or social issues that have an impact on society. Once enabled, these changes will only apply to recommended content domains and public accounts. The update will not change the way users see content from the accounts they follow; Therefore, accounts that are not eligible for recommendation will still be able to send political content to their followers.
For content creators, Meta notes that they can use the Account Status feature of professional accounts on Instagram to check if the account is affected by their recommendation eligibility. Professional accounts can also use Account Status to appeal this revocation of eligibility, edit, remove or pause policy-related posts.
These updates join Meta’s efforts to distance itself from the world of news and politics in recent years. In 2022, Facebook found that less than 3 percent of the content U.S. users saw in their feeds was politics-related. Mosseri stated that political content will not be encouraged on Threads or Instagram, and that limited interaction is not worth criticism or negativity towards the platforms.