Last month, Meta announced it that it would no longer “proactively recommend content about politics ” on Instagram and Threads as part of an effort to improve user experience.
“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,” the company said in a note in February.
That change began to roll out last week, when many users noticed that their default settings on the apps were different. The new restriction on political content does not affect what you see from accounts you follow on your feed. It only applies to content that the app recommends to you.
But if you want to opt out of the new changes, here’s how: On your profile page, tap the menu on the top right with three lines, go to “content preferences,” select “political content,” and choose the “Don’t limit” option.
Meta’s decision to cut out politics from its recommended content on Threads and Instagram has not been a wholly popular one, especially considering it is a critical election year for many countries, the United States included. Creators who post political content on social media have also criticized Meta’s latest move, as NBC News reported. An increasing number of users are consuming news and politics on social media, according to the Pew Research Center. It’s a shift that has elevated voices from communities that are typically underserved by mainstream media and put some traditional news corporations at a disadvantage.
Clarissa-Jan Lim is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW. She was previously a senior reporter and editor at BuzzFeed News.
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