Facebook, Threads and Instagram will change their content policies and begin recommending content of a political nature to their users.
“Starting this week in the United States and next week in the rest of the world, we are going to add political content to the recommendations,” explained Adam Mosseri, director of Instagram and Threads.
The Meta representative added that the volume of this type of content can be controlled by users, letting them decide between receiving a few to many political recommendations, with a moderate amount being the default option.
“I have maintained publicly and for a long time that it is not our place to show people political content from accounts they do not follow,” Mosseri clarified. “But many people have made it clear that they want this content, and it has proven impractical to draw a red line around what is and is not political content.”
He insisted that the company plans to introduce policy recommendations responsibly and with the ability to personalize them, letting users decide whether they want to consume this content or not. “Our plan is to continue listening to feedback, learning and iterating in the coming months. Thank you for your patience,” he concluded.
This decision appears to be part of a general change in philosophy about the type of content allowed and how it is dealt with on the platforms. Added to this is the recent announcement that official fact checkers will be replaced by a community notes system similar to that found on other social networks such as X (formerly known as Twitter).
These content policy changes are attributed by some commentators to the imminent change of government in the United States. These users argue that these decisions align ideologically with the Donald Trump administration and its approach to online content moderation and freedom of expression.
Via: Threads
