Instagram to stop recommending political content

Meta has decided to reduce the amount of political posts users see on Instagram, in a move announced in a blog post on Friday.

The social media giant announced it will no longer "proactively recommend" political content from accounts that users do not already follow. The policy also applies to Threads, Meta's answer to Twitter/X that was launched last summer.

“We want Instagram and Threads to be a great experience for everyone,” the blog post read. “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.”

"Political content" is defined by Meta as "potentially related to things like laws, elections or social topics."

Clearly, Meta sees politics as something that detracts from user's experience on their apps. With the company wanting to give the choice back to users on what political content they choose to see. And although the new policy is currently for Instagram and Threads, the blog post stated the same control will be rolled out on Facebook at a later date.

“Our goal is to preserve the ability for people to choose to interact with political content, while respecting each person’s appetite for it,” Instagram head Adam Mosseri wrote in a post on Threads.

The move isn't entirely unexpected, as Meta have been deprioritising political content across its apps.

“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 company explains in a post on its Transparency Center site.

Professional accounts on Instagram and Threads can check whether their posts are eligible to be recommended via the Account Status setting. If Instagram has blocked an account’s posts from recommendations, pro users may edit or remove recent posts to regain eligibility or request a review if they disagree with Instagram’s designation.

The move has been widely criticised online:

Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter

Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

How to join the indy100's free WhatsApp channel