Meta to phase back in political content on Facebook, Instagram, Threads

As part of an overhaul of its content moderation policies announced on Tuesday, Meta said it would once again phase in political content into Facebook, Instagram and Threads to meet the demand for political content, reported Xinhua.

Meta said Tuesday that it would take a "more personalized approach" going forward and recommend more political content to people based on personalized signals and would expand the options people have to control how much content they see.

The amount of political content on Meta's apps has been reduced since 2021, Meta noted in a blog post, based on user feedback that they wanted to see less of this content in their feeds.

Meta's early 2024 decision to stop proactively recommending political content to users on Instagram and Threads was met with both user and creator backlash. Creators were particularly concerned about how Meta would determine which content was political.

They were also worried about how these changes would limit their reach and ability to reach new audiences, which would have a direct impact on their ability to grow their personal brand and, therefore, their income.

Users felt that Meta's changes to how political content was being surfaced were suppressing their voice across social media, according to a report by TechCrunch.