Instagram Opts Against Proactively Recommending Political Content

Instagram users will no longer receive an overwhelming amount of unwanted political content on their feeds.

According to Variety, Instagram announced in a blog post that it will not actively suggest political content from accounts that users are not already following.

The identical policy is also implemented for Threads, the Instagram-associated app that was introduced last summer and operates like Twitter (now X).

"We want Instagram and Threads to be a great experience for everyone. 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," the Meta-owned company said.

Both applications will introduce a feature that allows users who are interested in viewing political content recommendations to opt in. According to the announcement, the same control will be implemented on Facebook at a later time. Instagram considers political content to include topics such as laws, elections, and social issues.

"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 revised policy no longer suggests political content on various sections of Instagram such as Explore, Reels, In-Feed Recommendations, and Suggested Users.

Meta has already been reducing the emphasis on political content on its social platforms, such as Facebook. The company stated that they have been refining their approach over the past few years to decrease the presence of political content, including from politicians' accounts, in various sections like Feed, Reels, Watch, Groups You Should Join, and Pages You May Like, based on feedback from users who expressed a desire to see less political content. This information was reported by Variety, citing a post on Meta's Transparency Center site.

The Instagram blog post mentioned that professional accounts on the platform can review their Account Status setting to determine if their posts meet the criteria for being recommended. This is based on whether they have recently shared political content. If Instagram has restricted a professional account's posts from being recommended, users can make changes to or delete recent posts in order to regain eligibility. Alternatively, they can request a review if they believe that Instagram's decision is incorrect.

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