If you have Instagram on your phone, you might be surprised to learn that the platform has automatically changed your settings to limit the amount of “political content” shown in your feed.
While social media platforms always notify users when making changes to their terms of service, Instagram chose to make these changes without any announcements or notifications. Instead, it was as if they made the changes hoping you would not notice, only briefly mentioning it through a seldom seen blog post on Instagram’s official website on Feb. 9, saying that they would be “extending our existing approach to how we treat political content,” but did not say how or to what extent.
Facebook, which has the same owner as Instagram, is expecting to see the same changes.
Here is the way to change your settings back:
There is a reason why Instagram has chosen to do this in a clandestine manner. The argument is that it is a way to ‘enhance’ user experience, by removing political content, but the problem is – what constitutes political content? Since Facebook and Instagram refuse to share their algorithm, no one really knows.
In light of the information from past censorship, while traditional overt political content might not make it to your feed, it can be expected that certain subjects that are extremely political will. Topics in support of certain political ideologies such as abortion, homosexuality, transgenderism, neo-racism, etc will no doubt make it to your feed.
Also, prepare for an increase in attacks on those who do not censor content in this way like Gab, Parlor, and especially X.
