Meta continues to refine its moderation rules and content. Instagram head Adam Mosseri posted today that Instagram and Threads will begin including political content in recommendations. This is a change from the policy adopted by both platforms which makes political content something that users have to choose if they want to see it. Now, Mosseri says there are three levels of political content Instagram and Threads users can choose to view: minimal, basic (which will be the default) and more.
“It has proven impractical to draw a red line around what is and is not political content,” Mosseri wrote. The change will begin this week in the US and the rest of the world in the coming weeks.
This announcement is the latest in a series of moves Meta has made in what appear to be efforts to curry favor with President-elect Donald Trump. CEO Mark Zuckerberg that the company will eliminate third-party fact-checkers in favor of a Community Notes model for Facebook, Instagram and Threads, mimicking the approach taken by X (formerly Twitter). Nick Clegg stepped down as Meta’s president of global affairs to be replaced by Joel Kaplan, who is well connected to Republicans in Washington DC.
Yesterday, Instagram was also discovered to have several LGBTQ hashtags and treated it as “sexually suggestive material” for months. The company said it was a mistake.