Users of Facebook, Instagram and Threads will soon inevitably be exposed to political content, since it will no longer be possible to deactivate these unsolicited publications. The new operation will only allow you to choose between three levels of interest: less, standard, or more.
This was announced by Meta, the multinational which brings together the three social networks, on Tuesday, January 7. In his press releasethe company develops: “We will start treating civic content from people and pages you follow on Facebook like any other content in your News Feed (…) based on explicit signals (e.g. liking a piece of content) and implicit (like looking at posts) that help us predict what is important to people. We will also recommend more political content based on these personalized signals.”
This change, implemented this week in the United States and in the coming weeks in the rest of the world, is a shift in the group’s philosophy. In 2023, Adam Mosseri, director of Instagram, wrote sur Threads: “Any additional engagement or revenue that (political content) might generate is absolutely not worth the scrutiny, negativity (let’s be honest) or integrity risks that come with it. (…) There are enough extraordinary communities (…) to create a dynamic platform without needing to be interested in politics or current events.”
This Thursday, January 9, 2025, so he updated his position: “I have maintained very publicly and for a long time that it is not our place to show people political content from accounts they do not follow, but many people have made it clear that they want to see this content.”
A turnaround which finds coherence with the abandonment of fact-checking on the group’s networks, also announced in the press release of January 7. The objective put forward by Meta: to return “to (his) fundamental commitment to freedom of expression.”
“An extremely dangerous time”
Drew Bviens, managing director of social media consultancy Battenhall, accuses Meta of wanting to take advantage of “change of political wind” inherent in the re-election of Donald Trump to the White House. “Threads and Instagram were largely considered safe places, especially compared to the turbulent developments on X”he says.
This new perspective could have important and serious consequences. According to the consultant, “(These changes) will pave the way for the rapid and massive spread of disinformation across a user base of more than 2 billion people.”
On BBC Radio 4Helle Thorning-Schmidt, co-chair of the supervisory board of Meta (independent), also said, “very concerned”. She warned about the “huge problems” posed by the new philosophy of the social media group, particularly regarding the LGBT+ community, likely to be more exposed to hate speech than before.
By way of summary, journalist Maria Ressa, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, declared to AFP that this dogmatic reversal promised “an extremely dangerous time.”
Source: www.slate.fr
