Meta, the parent company to Instagram and Thread, announced that it’s expanding an existing Reels policy that limits political content from people you’re not following (including posts about social issues) from appearing in recommended feeds.
The technology company said it aimed to avoid making recommendations that could be about politics or political issues, in line with the approach of not recommending certain types of content to those who don’t wish to see it.
It stated that Users on Instagram and Threads can choose to opt back to see content related to laws, elections, and social topics in their recommended feeds, and they’ll still see accounts they follow.
In a blog post on Friday, the company highlighted that they want users to have a valuable experience when they use Facebook, Instagram, and Threads, which is why they use AI systems to personalize the content they see based on the choices they make.
“People have told us they want to see less political content, so we have spent the last few years refining our approach on Facebook to reduce the amount of political content – including from politicians’ accounts – you see in Feed, Reels, Watch, Groups You Should Join, and Pages You May Like. We’ve recently extended this approach in Reels, Explore and In-Feed Recommendations on Instagram and Threads, too, Meta says in the post.”
“At the same time, we’re preserving your ability to find and interact with political content that’s meaningful to you if that’s what you’re interested in on Facebook Feed. When ranking political content in our Facebook Feed, our AI systems consider personalized signals, like survey responses, that help us understand what is informative, meaningful, or worth your time.”
“We also consider how likely people are to provide us with negative feedback on posts about political issues when they appear in Facebook Feed. We’ve shifted away from ranking political content in Facebook Feed based on engagement signals – such as how likely you are to comment on or share content – since we’ve found that they are not reliable indicators that the content is valuable to someone.”
“In addition, users can personalize what they see on Facebook through customization tools. The company offers in their Feed Preferences and directly in places like their Feed. They can provide direct feedback on a post by selecting Show More or Show Less and using Reduce to adjust the degree to which we demote some content. If you don’t want AI systems to personalize your Feed at all, you can use the Feeds tab, which will rank posts chronologically. You can also add people to your Favorites list so you always see content from your favourite accounts.”
