Meta formerly called Facebook, Political content is no longer automatically played on Instagram, including Threads as well. Meta made this decision without notifying users who must deactivate this setting in the application settings if they want to have political content recommended.

EFFECTS OF THESE CHANGES

This limitation of political publications will affect the content that is suggested to the users.“We are going to see fewer recommended publications, that is to say, everything that is in Reels, in the Explore module of Instagram and our news feed,” says the doctoral student in communications.

This could also be a Meta tactic to encourage politicians to buy ads to reach the target audience. Instagram and Threads could justify this choice by the fight against missing information and their difficulties in controlling the content found on their platforms. They also believe that they have problems with moderation because there is too much content to regulate at the moment, by artificial intelligence and human control, which requires more work in general. Slowing down the circulation of such content could help Meta resist criticism.

“They were accused of a lot of disinformation with content where there was very little moderation,” says the lecturer at UQAM. By slowing down the circulation of political or important social issues, we somewhat limit the impact of this disinformation. Traffic is slowed down. It’s their way of dealing with it.”

HOW TO RESTORE CONTENT?

To cancel this suggested content limitation, users must go to their profile and tap the three small lines at the screen’s top right. Then, in the “Suggested content” section, you need to click on “Political content” and check “Do not limit”. This limitation also applies to Facebook to a certain rule.

Some people are not concerned about political publications, and probably most teenagers aren’t. If you are interested in having those types of publications, this is the way the restore them.