Hundreds of creators plead with Instagram to stop hiding political content

Update is Meta’s ‘latest abdication of its responsibility to uphold open and safe online platforms for expression, discussion, education, and advocacy’, activists say

One Tech Tip-Instagram-Political Content (Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)

Hundreds of Instagram creators have urged parent company Meta to reverse a recent, controversial change.

In February, Meta announced that it would start hiding political content on Instagram and Threads, with a similar change to come to Facebook. It suggested that the new policy was intended help people have a “great experience” on its apps.

The change meant that content that Meta decides is political will not be recommended in Instagram on Threads, in places such as Reels or its “Explore” page, both of which can serve as key ways for creators to grow their reach. Political content would not be limited from accounts that users explicitly followed.

Political content is those posts that are “likely to mention governments, elections, or social topics that affect a group of people and/or society at large”, Meta’s rules say. Creators can check whether their account is marked as one from their settings.

Now a letter – signed by more than 200 creators, and launched by LGBTQ organisation GLAAD and activists Accountable Tech – has urged Meta to reverse that change. Users should have to opt into the ban if they want to mute political content, they argue.

“Limiting the reach of creators without notice or definition of what constitutes ‘political content’ threatens their identities and livelihoods, while leaving hundreds of millions of users without access to critical news content during the biggest global election year in history,” said Nicole Gill, executive director and co-founder of Accountable Tech, in a statement.

“Today’s fragmented media environment – that Meta helped create – has resulted in social media platforms having outsized influence over the way information is presented and disseminated, and this decision will have negative effects both on and off of their platforms.” 

The letter, addressed to head of Instagram Adam Mosseri, argues that the change has undermined the reach of advocacy work in topics such as “climate change, gun violence prevention, racial justice, transgender rights, and reproductive freedom to name just a few”.

“Meta’s decision to limit political content by their own vague definition is the company’s latest abdication of its responsibility to uphold open and safe online platforms for expression, discussion, education, and advocacy,” Accountable Tech said.

“Over the years, Meta has enticed individuals, creators and organisations to post and invest on their platforms only to turn its back on them, causing creators and organisations that engage in political and social topics to experience diminished digital influence, a decreased audience, and a major decline in engagement.”

Many creators have taken to asking their followers to reverse the ban on their accounts, and a number of infographics explaining how to do so have gone viral in the time since.

The block can be turned off by opening the app, clicking on your own profile, and pressing the three lines in the corner to bring up the settings. From there, scroll down to “suggested content” and click the “political posts” option, which gives the option to press a button that reads “Don’t limit political content from people that you don’t follow”.