Various reports from users on social media about a Meta change regarding the visibility of political content on Instagram are multiplying. The platform, in fact, has decided to limit by default the political or social content of people who are not among its followers. In order to view them with the same frequency as before, the user must go to the settings, click on the privacy section and change the functions on the limits to the contents in question. The app specifies which topics are involved in the operation: “Contents of a political nature may mention governments, elections or social topics that affect a group of people and/or society in general.” To then explain that the decision to change the settings «affects suggestions relating to Explore, Reels, recommendations in the feed and suggested users. It does not affect the content of the accounts you follow. This setting also applies to Threads.”
The controversy on social media: «Very serious»
Comments are pouring in on social media from people complaining about the possible ethical and political consequences of this decision, especially on the threshold of the European elections. «We are in Europe, we are in the DigitalServicesAct era, but the methods of moderating content remain firmly in the hands of the platforms: on Instagram it is now possible to choose whether or not to censor, a priori, content on political and social themes. It’s a shame that the decision on which contents are cataloged in these categories is at the total discretion of Instagram, which is thus granted broad powers to silence news, opinions and information relevant to public opinion in an election year”, writes a user . “But isn’t this thing about Instagram and political content a very dangerous thing?”, urges another.
However, this is an action which, despite being controversial these days, was announced by Meta in a note dated February 9th. “If you decide to follow accounts that post political content, we don’t intend to come between you and their posts, but we also don’t want to proactively recommend political content from accounts you don’t follow,” the statement reads. «Those who still want to see this type of political content in the recommendation sections of Threads and Instagram will be able to do so thanks to a special option. This option will also be available on Facebook at a later date”, continues the note.
