Instagram users have been posting more and more complaints about the social platform's practice of limiting political content by default.
The site and app, owned by Facebook parent company Meta, appears to have quietly posted guidance online in early February on how political content will be limited unless a user goes in and manually changes a setting not to limit the content.
Instagram said in the post, "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."
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Some users have chosen to post their grievances on X, formerly called Twitter — with some accusing the platform of limiting political content while allowing other offensive content to flourish.
Other users are posting tutorials showing how to update the setting to allow more political content to show up in feeds.
Instagram
Tech and investment outlet Ars Technica accused Instagram of not expressly notifying its users of such a big and important change to the platform, which came during a key election year in the United States.
A spokesperson for Instagram, Dani Lever, responded to the outlet telling them the change doesn't "impact posts from accounts people choose to follow."
Lever said the change "impacts what the system recommends, and people can control if they want more."
Instagram said on their website that the change will also roll out to Facebook "at a later date."
To update your account on Instagram, the platform says users should navigate to the "Suggested content" screen and then choose "Political content." From there users can choose to either "Limit" political content, or "Don't limit," as options.
