Meta to no longer recommend political content on Instagram, Threads

Mark Zuckerberg-owned Meta has said that it will not proactively suggest political content to users on its social media apps. Instagram and Threads users will not longer see political content by default. But there’s a way that they can get political content suggestions, depending on their interest. 

Instagram and Threads won’t suggest political content 

Instagram Head Adam Mosseri took to Threads to announce a big change coming to Threads and Instagram. He revealed that both apps won’t proactively suggest political content by default. However, users will still see political content from the accounts they follow. 

“If you follow political accounts on Threads or Instagram, we want to avoid getting between you and their content. That said, we also don’t want to proactively amplify political content from accounts you don’t follow. To that end, we’re extending our existing approach to how we avoid recommending political content to additional surfaces,” wrote Mosseri.

He said that the company will avoid suggesting political content on the following surfaces – Explore tab, Teels, and Suggested Users. Those who want political suggestions on these surfaces can opt into getting them. 

“Over the next few weeks we will be improving how we avoid recommending content about politics on recommendation surfaces – Explore, Reels, and Suggested User – across both Instagram and Threads. If you want political recommendations, you will have a control to opt into getting them.” 

As to how users can opt into getting the political content recommendations, they need to head to Settings and visit the Suggested content tab. There they will have to tap on the Political content tab and then select ‘Don’t limit’. By default, it should be set to ‘Limit’. 

What about Facebook you may ask. Mosseri noted that the company will roll out the same controls on Facebook sometime later. 

As for the professional accounts on Instagram, they will be able to use Account Status to check their eligibility to be recommended based on whether they recently posted political content.

“From Account Status, they 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,” noted the company. 

—Written with inputs from IANS