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Instagram, Facebook, X or Telegram are some of the main distribution channels for accounts focused on political content. Regardless of the political spectrum they belong to, there has been an explosion of this type of content for some time now, and not all platforms seem to be enjoying it.

They want Meta to put an end to political content recommendations on Instagram and Threads. From now on, such content will only be visible to users who follow certain political accounts. The importance that the social network will give to these posts is so great that they will no longer be seen as just a tag and will have their own section in the recommended content section.

Instagram announced new measures regarding its “approach to political content”. The social network states that they “do not want to get in the way” of the political content we follow and their posts, but also that they “do not want to proactively recommend political content from the accounts you make.” following.”

Say goodbye to political content on Instagram (at least by default)

In other words, if we do not follow a particular account, Instagram will stop suggesting this feature in stories, feed and Topics. They will also disappear from the Explore tab, so it will not be possible to discover new content related to politics.

There will be some exceptions that are not very well defined. Whether the type of content is limited will depend directly on whether Instagram considers the account posting it to be “recommended.”

These recommendation updates apply to public accounts and places where we recommend content, such as Explore, Reels, In-Stream Recommendations, and Recommended Users; This doesn’t change how we show people content from the accounts they choose to follow. If political content that could potentially relate to topics like laws, elections, or social issues is posted by an account that is not eligible for recommendation, that account’s content may still reach your followers in Feed and Stories.

If we want to continue seeing suggestions from political accounts, there will be a drop-down menu in the suggested content section. Just as we can activate or deactivate posts with sensitive content, we can do the same for political content. The default dropdown will be in “limited” mode, but we can revert the configuration to the previous one.

These policies are reaching Instagram first, but Meta confirmed that this drop-down will also reach Facebook, where the algorithm works similarly. In doing so, they follow in the footsteps of platforms like LinkedIn, which decided to shut down political content in 2022 in response to criticism from its users.

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