Instagram moves to limit political content
Instagram has moved to limit political content, with users now having to go into their settings on the app to turn the limiting feature off.
Users of the popular social media platform now have to go into their settings under “[c]ontent preferences,” click “[p]olitical content,” and choose the option to not “limit political content from people you don’t follow,” or else Instagram will limit political content from those the user doesn’t follow by default.
Instagram announced back in February that it would no longer proactively recommend political content.
“We want Instagram and Threads to be a great experience for everyone,” a post on Instagram’s blog from last month reads. “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.”
“So we’re extending our existing approach to how we treat political content – we won’t proactively recommend content about politics on recommendation surfaces across Instagram and Threads,” the Instagram blog post continues. “If you still want these posts recommended to you, you will have a control to see them.”
In a post from over a month ago on Threads, the head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri, said the mission of the policy change “is to preserve the ability for people to choose to interact with political content, while respecting each person’s appetite for it."
The Hill has reached out to Meta, the parent company of Instagram and Threads.