Meta quietly changed the default settings of every Instagram and Threads user last month to show less political content. Well, they tried to do it quietly — the update was quickly discovered and blasted as an attempt by the tech giant to censor important discussions and shaft news accounts. In the frenzied debate around whether this was right and instructions from publishers and commentators on how to change your settings back, another subtle change flew under the radar: Meta simultaneously expanded its definition of political content to include “social topics.”
What are “social topics”? Apparently, it’s anything that may “affect a group of people and/or society at large”.
Crikey is committed to hosting lively discussions. Help us keep the conversation useful, interesting and welcoming. We aim to publish comments quickly in the interest of promoting robust conversation, but we’re a small team and we deploy filters to protect against legal risk. Occasionally your comment may be held up while we review, but we’re working as fast as we can to keep the conversation rolling.
The Crikey comment section is members-only content. Please subscribe to leave a comment.
The Crikey comment section is members-only content. Please login to leave a comment.