Meta’s latest subversive content suppression move left users riled over a systemwide setting swap on political posts.
While the Biden administration’s attempt at a so-called Ministry of Truth got laughed off the internet and the “Twitter Files” exposed the considerable ties between Big Tech and the federal government, Facebook’s parent company Meta continued to plug along with controlling what users on their platforms are seeing.
Following a Feb. 9 announcement that would impact Instagram and Threads, many users couldn’t help but notice this week when the unspecified change took place limiting exposure to political content.
Initially, Instagram’s blog stated, “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.”
“If you still want these posts recommended to you, you will have a control to see them,” the blog explained of the impact of the “Explore, Reels, In-Feed Recommendations and Suggested Users” portions of the platform as it defined political content as “potentially related to things like laws, elections, or social topics.”
After the update took place, users noted that not only had the political content block been made the default position, switching all users over to the limited option thus tamping down their feed on designated topics to accounts they followed, but they were also experiencing problems when attempting to toggle off the limit.
Omg it let me change it just fine but so many people are saying this??
— michaela okland (@MichaelaOkla) March 23, 2024
Every time I try to change it the app closes. This is so sinister it’s comical ♂️ like wtf?
— Dare Emmanuel (@Darevids21) March 22, 2024
Did yal know Instagram was actively limiting the reach of political content like this?! I had no idea til I saw this comment and I checked my settings and sho nuff political content was limited pic.twitter.com/1PAs4OWumm
— Olayemi Olurin (@msolurin) March 22, 2024
It keeps crashing every time I try to change it
— Livy (@MzButterfly513) March 22, 2024
In a statement to Ars Technica, Meta spokesperson Dani Lever defended to move and said, “This change does not impact posts from accounts people choose to follow; it impacts what the system recommends, and people can control if they want more. We have been working for years to show people less political content based on what they told us they want, and what posts they told us are political.”
Still, others couldn’t help but connect the latest move from the social media behemoth with election-year politics considering Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s past exploits which included major spending efforts pumped into districts across the country with the purpose of funding activities like voter outreach, voter education, registration programs, ballot drop boxes and other election-related expenses dubbed “Zuckerbucks.”
So pervasive were the billionaire’s activities in the 2020 election that legislators moved to ban a repeat performance, including in Florida where Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a law against the practice in May 2021.
Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan had funded two nonprofit organizations with roughly $400 million during the previous presidential cycle, a move that was defended by the left as money was also used to support COVID policies at polling locations.
Meta limiting “political content” which includes the vague “social topics that affect a group of people/ society at large” during an election year filled with humanitarian crises is certainly a choice.
— Whitney Alese (@TheReclaimed) March 21, 2024
Meta/Instagram limited my ability to view “political content.” Defined to include content re: “government, elections, or social topics that affect people or society.” My “default” setting was to censor. This is not okay. pic.twitter.com/mSk95ySq0F
— Scott Hechinger (@ScottHech) March 22, 2024
Instagram, a Meta property, is now censoring political content.
Thank you, @elonmusk for providing America with a free speech platform!
— Dave Champion, Ph.D. – aka Dr Reality (@DrReality5) March 23, 2024
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Author: Kevin Haggerty
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