Instagram announced Friday it won’t recommend political content on its platform or on its Threads platform.
The app is following in the footsteps of its parent company, Meta, which has similarly responded to political posts across its other platform, Facebook. Meta claimed to have received feedback from users requesting to see less political content. It similarly will not recommend even the accounts of politicians to its users.
“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,” Instagram’s announcement read. “If political content – potentially related to things like laws, elections, or social topics – is posted by an account that is not eligible to be recommended, that account’s content can still reach their followers in Feed and Stories.”
Users also retain the ability to turn on recommendations of political posts and profiles via their settings. Those profiles that are deemed political can also request a review of their status so that their content can be recommended to other users who don’t follow them.
“Our goal is to preserve the ability for people to choose to interact with political content, while respecting each person’s appetite for it,” Instagram head Adam Mosseri wrote on Threads.
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This announcement comes on the heels of former Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson interviewing Russian President Vladimir Putin and publishing the video on X. Ever since it was acquired by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, X has as a platform welcomed more political discussion by unbanning political figures like former President Donald Trump and talk show host Alex Jones.
Last month, Facebook and Instagram similarly restricted children’s accounts from being recommended even if their profiles were public. This was an attempt to calm concerns about children’s safety on both platforms amid a congressional hearing with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.