It’s been nearly a year since Instagram and Threads defaulted to blocking recommendations of “political” content from accounts you don’t already follow, but now Instagram boss Adam Mosseri says, “…we’re going to be adding political content to recommendations” on both platforms.

That’s a sharp turn from his statements in 2023laying out the goal of a “less angry place for conversations” that wouldn’t do anything to encourage politics or hard news. However, under Meta’s new approach to moderation — and new rules about what users can say on its platforms— that goal is going out the window just as the Trump administration prepares to take over.

Until now, users have had to opt-in to seeing recommendations of content deemed political, but the change rolling out this week in the US and to the rest of the world next week will turn on the recommendations and a content control setting available with options for less, standard (the default setting), and more.

In a series of Threads posts, Mosseri reiterated, “I’ve maintained very publicly and for a long time that it not our place to show people political content from accounts they don’t follow,” and that “it’s proven impractical to draw a red line around what is and is not political content.”

In a video on Instagram, he said that the push for political content — particularly from users on Threads — is “by the way, very different from the feedback we were getting only a few years ago about people feeling that they were overly exposed to political content on our platforms.” Of course, according to the Wall Street Journal, that was before Mark Zuckerberg experienced the effects of filters cutting down the reach of his post about recovering from a torn ACL and before Meta’s new and friendlier-to-Trump policy chief took over.

    • robalees@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      21 hours ago

      Based on this list, any instances you recommend? I did Lemmy.world because I had no clue what I was doing. Just deleted FB and IG accounts, so I’m ready for change!

      • kipo@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        edit-2
        14 hours ago

        Lemm.ee has been great to me. The instance owner and maintainer seems like a genuinely decent person. We refused to federate with threads but otherwise we federate with pretty much everyone and leave it up the user to decide what they want to be exposed to.

        • robalees@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          2 hours ago

          Thank you for the reply, checking out Lemm.ee and seeing how it goes. Looks like there is no official way to do it, but do you know of any way to export posts/comments from a Lemmy instance? Trying to decide if I delete this account or just leave it as is.

      • recursive_recursion they/them
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        7
        ·
        edit-2
        21 hours ago

        Here’s a couple that I think are good so far:

        I’m recommending these based on:

        • threads blocked at minimum (fedipact being optimal)
        • good wholesome community activities and interactions
        • high number of trustworthy admins to provide you support and for content moderation (unless you like spam and zero-sum nonsense)
        • useful and cool local communities
        • my past exp with fellow moderators

        Some will be more or less useful or interesting to you so honestly feel free to choose whichever you think fits best for you🤗

        • robalees@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          2 hours ago

          Thank you for the reply, I’ll definitely check some of these out. I am interested in fedipact if possible, but I’m gonna give lemm.ee a go for a while. Same question as the other comment, do you know of any way to export posts/comments from a Lemmy instance? Trying to decide if I delete this account or just leave it as is.

    • Telorand@reddthat.com
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      24 hours ago

      Thanks for sharing. Nice to know my Lemmy instance blocks them, but sad to see my Mastodon instance federating. I guess I should think about moving.