Instagram’s Threads to impose restrictions on the promotion of political content
Unwanted political content will no longer inundate the feeds of Instagram users.
According to Variety , Instagram said in a blog post that it will not “proactively recommend” political content from accounts that users don’t already follow.
The same policy is also applied to the Twitter-like Threads published last summer under the Instagram brand.
“We want Instagram and Threads to be a great experience for everyone. If you choose 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 actively recommend political content from accounts you don’t follow,” the Meta-owned company said.
Both apps will add a setting that allows users who still want to see recommendations for political content to do so — and the same control will be rolled out to Facebook later, according to the post. Instagram defines “political content” as “potentially related issues such as laws, elections, or social issues.”
“Our goal is to preserve the ability for people to interact with political content while respecting each person’s willingness to engage with it,” Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri wrote in a post on Threads.
The updated policy to stop recommending political content applies to areas of Instagram including Explore, Reels, In-Feed Recommendations and Suggested Users.
Meta has already prioritized political content on its social apps, including Facebook. “People have told us they want to see less political content, so over the last few years we’ve refined our approach on Facebook to reduce the amount of political content – including politicians’ accounts – you see in your feed, reel, watch and groups. You should join and pages you might like “, the company explained on its Transparency Center website, Variety reported.
An Instagram blog post noted that professional accounts on the app can check the Account Status setting to see if their posts are eligible for endorsements — based on whether they’ve recently posted “political content.” If Instagram has blocked an account’s posts from endorsements, pro users can edit or delete recent posts to regain eligibility or request a review if they disagree with Instagram’s designation.
