Instagram has introduced restrictions on political content
Meta has added a "political content" setting to its Instagram social network. The change affects messages that "may refer to governments, elections, or social issues affecting large groups of people and/or society as a whole." Political activists, including pro-Palestinians, accuse the platform of censorship.
Instagram's algorithms have been updated - now users will be able to limit the amount of political content in their news feed, writes TRT.
It is noted that Meta, the company that owns social networks, automatically launched this function without notifying users. The "political content" section added to the settings section of the network is "po umolchaniyu", that is, in the initial settings, the "disable" section is turned on. However, users can manually change it to "unrestricted".
The new change caused a wave of protest from social network users. Political activists, including pro-Palestinians, accuse the platform of censorship.
The guidelines say the change will affect messages that "may refer to governments, elections or social issues affecting a large group of people and/or society as a whole".
Users who accused the platform of active censorship took to X, formerly Twitter, to express their displeasure.
"They want us to publish images of mountains, holidays, beautiful portraits, flowers and other things. They think we have too much content about Palestine, Congo, immigrants, sovereignty, indigenous movements, environmental justice and racism,” wrote one user.
Many activists use social media platforms, including Instagram, to spread information, organize protests, and other forms of mobilization. Since the beginning of Israel's invasion of the Gaza Strip, social media posts by Palestinian journalists and citizens have become the main sources of information. Because the Israeli government has banned international media from entering the Gaza Strip.
Palestinians are also using social media to call for help or get updates on loved ones amid frequent telecommunications blackouts due to Israeli actions. In December, Human Rights Watch (HRW) accused Instagram and Facebook social media company Meta of systematically censoring content about Palestine in a report.
"Social media is an important platform for people to testify and speak out against abuses, and Meta's censorship contributes to erasing Palestinian suffering," said Deborah Brown, HRW's acting deputy director of technology and human rights.
In February, Instagram announced in a statement that it would stop "proactively recommending" political content on accounts that users don't follow, and would expand political coverage to its Threads section.
However, many social media users have accused Instagram of limiting political discussion in a year with key elections in the US and other countries. In their opinion, in this way, political activists lose many opportunities to counter propaganda.
