Instagram and Threads will soon no longer recommend “political” posts by default

A notable change as the US elections approach. The Instagram and Threads networks will soon no longer recommend “political content” to their users unless they explicitly accept it, their parent company Meta announced on Friday February 9.

Political posts from the accounts you subscribe to will still appear, but the applications will not recommend new ones to you, whether in the search functions, Reels or the news feed, Meta details in a press release. To be recommended this type of content, you will need to check an option in the settings.

Change “in the coming weeks”

“Our goal is to preserve the ability for people to choose to interact with political content, while respecting everyone’s appetite for [ce type de contenu]“, specifies Instagram manager Adam Mosseri on Threads. Among the “political content” concerned, Meta lists, for example, publications “related to things like laws, elections or social issues”.

This change will be deployed “in the next weeks”specifies Adam Mosseri, and will arrive on Facebook “at a later date”adds Meta without giving details. “Users told us they wanted to see less political content”justifies in another blog post the social media giant, often accused of promoting political polarization.