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BUSINESS EYE FEBRUARY 23, 2024 | The Indian Eye 35

TECH T@LK

Instagram, Threads to start limiting

the recommendation of political content

OUR BUREAU refining our approach on Facebook to reduce the
amount of political content - including from poli-
San Francisco, CA
ticians’ accounts - you see in Feed, Reels, Watch,
nstagram users will no longer be bombarded Groups You Should Join, and Pages You May
with unwanted political content on their feed. Like,” the company explained in a post on its Trans-
IAs per Variety, Instagram, in a blog post, said it parency Center site, Variety reported.
will not “proactively recommend” political content The Instagram blog post noted that profes-
from accounts that users do not already follow. sional accounts on the app can check the Account
The same policy is also applied to Threads, the Status setting to see if their posts are eligible to
Twitter-like app launched last summer under the be recommended -- based on whether they re-
Instagram brand. cently posted “political content.” If Instagram has
“We want Instagram and Threads to be a great blocked an account’s posts from recommendations,
experience for everyone. If you decide to follow ac- pro users may edit or remove recent posts to regain
counts that post political content, we don’t want to eligibility or request a review if they disagree with
get between you and their posts, but we also don’t Instagram’s designation.
want to proactively recommend political content Threads, meanwhile, is getting more aggres-
from accounts you don’t follow,” the Meta-owned respecting each person’s appetite for it,” Instagram sive by bringing its keyword search function to ev-
company said. head Adam Mosseri wrote in a post on Threads. ery area where the app is accessible. Before being
Both apps will add a setting to let users who still The updated policy to discontinue recommending rolled out to the majority of other English- and
want to see political content recommendations opt political content applies to areas of Instagram in- Spanish-speaking nations, including the United
to do so -- and, according the post, the same control cluding Explore, Reels, In-Feed Recommendations States, in September, the feature was first tested
will roll out on Facebook at a later date. Instagram and Suggested Users. in English-speaking regions, such as Australia and
defines “political content” as “potentially related to Meta has already been deprioritising political New Zealand, in August, reported TechCrunch.
things like laws, elections or social topics.” content across its social apps, including on Face- Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, has an-
“Our goal is to preserve the ability for people book. “People have told us they want to see less po- nounced that keyword searches will now be “sup-
to choose to interact with political content, while litical content, so we have spent the last few years ported in all languages.”

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