Meta Has Begun Targeting ‘Political Content,’ but Won’t Define It

By Adam Garrie, The Kennedy Beacon

By Adam Garrie, The Kennedy Beacon

In February, Meta announced that ‘political content’ would no longer appear “in places where we recommend content” on Instagram and Threads, both of which Meta owns. The default Instagram algorithm will no longer offer political content to users who do not explicitly follow ‘political’ accounts. 

What does this mean? Is Meta dishonestly meddling in user access to information?

Meta does not offer a definition of the kinds of posts that may be deemed ‘political’ – nor does it make clear why it has made changes now, during an election year. 

Commenting on the new policy, Meta spokesperson Dani Lever offered the following statement to tech publication, Ars Technica: “We have been working for years to show people less political content based on what they told us they want, and what posts they told us are political.”

Taken at face value, it would appear that Instagram seeks to pivot from an all-purpose, visually-based platform to one that focuses on entertainment and “slice of life” content at the expense of the political. The same appears to apply to the less popular platform Threads. This is a reasonable corporate pivot, just as it is the case that, unlike X (formerly Twitter), Meta platforms have taken the decision to exclude otherwise legal pornographic images from their Instagram and Facebook platforms. 

But suppressing legal content, such as political speech, might not be as clear cut as Meta wishes. 

Meta’s announcement of its policy change, which already impacts Instagram and will soon affect Facebook, does not state how ‘political content’ is defined. 

The announcement reads, in part:

We want Instagram and Threads to be a great experience for everyone. 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. So we’re extending our existing approach to how we treat political content – we won’t proactively recommend content about politics on recommendation surfaces across Instagram and Threads. If you still want these posts recommended to you, you will have a control to see them.

Not providing a definition of ‘political content’ could lead to problems due to the broad definition of “politics.” Will the content Meta automatically suppresses be strictly limited to electioneering and advocacy for political candidates? Alternatively, will it also affect content about issues of widespread public interest that are often the subject of legislation? 

For instance, abortion, immigration, crime and safety, public health, and foreign policy are issues of general interest that are often the subjects of legislation. Are statements commenting on these issues going to be classed as “political”? What about issues of human rights in instances of war, famine, or natural disasters? Are these issues “political” just because many political figures also comment on these issues? 

Then there is the matter of legal rulings or out-of-court settlements. While the judicial branch is one of the three branches of government, court rulings are rarely considered “politics,” although they affect the legislative and executive branches in many cases, just as many legal rulings impact the public at large. 

The FDA recently settled a lawsuit with doctor-citizens who alleged the FDA mischaracterized proper usage of the drug Ivermectin. The FDA settled with the plaintiffs and agreed to remove posts advising against the use of Ivermectin to treat COVID-19. Strictly speaking, this is a judicial matter in which the defendants included public health agencies. Is this also “political” in Meta’s view? 

Meta has a duty to its users to clarify how it defines “political” so that posts will not be shadowbanned without a poster’s knowledge. Meta does offer some users a chance to see if their Instagram profiles have been effectively blacklisted as “political.”

According to the company: “Professional accounts on Instagram will be able to use Account Status to check their eligibility to be recommended based on whether they recently posted political content. From Account Status, they can edit or remove recent posts, request a review if they disagree with our decision, or stop posting this type of content for a period of time, in order to be eligible to be recommended again.” 

Meta’s statement does not indicate whether non-professional accounts (the majority on Instagram) will have an opportunity to discover if they have been blacklisted for ‘political’ content. The new policy statement from Meta also does not indicate how paid political advertising might be impacted by this change. 

In other words, it’s all mysterious and Orwellian at a time when many of us are looking for transparency and choice.