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Don’t say ‘vote’: How Instagram hides your political posts
WaPo #tech columnist Geoffrey A. Fowler investigates how #Meta’s #Instagram, #Facebook & #Threads suppress #content related to the #election. Even discussing how to #vote isn’t safe.
…Fowler shows exactly how #democracy dies on Instagram.
#SocialMedia #internet #censorship #politics
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/10/16/instagram-limits-political-content-shadowban-election-posts/
On #Instagram, creator Mrs. Frazzled can get more than a million viewers for her goofy videos “parenting” misbehaving adults. One recent hit showed bartenders how to talk to drunk customers like they’re in kindergarten. But lately, she’s been frazzled by something else: Whenever she posts about the #election, she feels as if her audience disappears.
It’s not just her imagination.
Mrs. Frazzled, whose real name is Arielle Fodor, let Fowler inside her #Instagram account to investigate. He found that whenever she mentioned anything related to politics over the last 6 months, the size of her audience declined about 40% compared w/her nonpolitical posts.
It appears she can’t even say “vote.” When she used the word in a caption across 11 posts, her average audience was 63% smaller. “It is very disempowering,” Fodor says.
If you’ve suspected that you’re yelling into a void about the #election on #Instagram, #Facebook or #Threads, it’s not your imagination, either. Downplaying #politics is business & political strategy for #Meta, the #SocialMedia giant…
A wider study by the advocacy group #AccountableTech, …quantified the audience drop for 5 prominent liberal IG accounts, including the #HumanRightsCampaign & #Feminist, that post almost entirely about politics. Over 10 wks this spring, their avg audiences fell 65%.
it’s not just #Instagram: Only 1 of 6 #SocialMedia giants would tell WaPo whether you can use the word “#vote” without having a post suppressed.
It matters because social media has a profound impact on how people see themselves, their communities & the world. 1 in 5 American adults regularly get their news from Instagram [JFC] — more than #TikTok, #X or #Reddit — acc/to the Pew Research Center.
It could leave swaths of Americans wondering why we aren’t hearing as much about the #election. And less likely to #vote, too.
#Meta doesn’t deny that it’s suppressing #politics & #SocialIssues. But as Fowler’s deep dive into Mrs. Frazzled’s #Instagram account shows, it has left users in the lurch — & won’t give straight answers about when, & how, it reduces the volume on what #users have to say.
During the dark days of covid lockdowns, Fodor started posting about virtual teaching, on #TikTok &, eventually, #Instagram. Over time, she developed the Mrs. Frazzled persona…. She got the most engagement from audiences on Instagram, where she has 377k followers.
Today, Fodor is a 32-yr-old mom in graduate school who earns money as an #online creator. As the 2024 #election approached, her interests increasingly turned to #politics & #SocialIssues.
These topics accounted for about ⅓ of her posts for the 6 months that ended in Sept. Some were about #AbortionRights or critical of #Trump, while others were more nonpartisan & educational, such as an explanation of #RankedChoiceVoting…
She noticed right away that her #politics work wasn’t taking off. “It’s a huge barrier when we have the interconnectedness of #SocialMedia at our fingertips & we cannot even share any messages about the #election process,” Fodor says.
#tech #internet #censorship
Her frustration is a product of a change of heart by #Meta CEO Mark #Zuckerberg. In 2021, he began pulling back on political #content on #Facebook, after years of being accused by #Republicans of favoring #Democrats. [coward]
The hatchet fell on #Instagram this year. In a Feb blog post, Meta said it would no longer “proactively recommend content about #politics,” including topics “potentially related to things like #laws, #elections, or #social topics.”
Translation: #Meta tightened the reins over what to put in your #feed & Explore tab, specifically from accounts you don’t already follow.
As part of the shift, #Instagram also opted everyone into a new #setting to have it recommend less #political #content from accounts you don’t follow. It did NOT alert users to this inside the Instagram #app. (If you don’t want a #sanitized feed on Instagram, #Facebook or #Threads, instructions for how to change your #settings below)
This is not exactly “#censorship” — anyone can still post about #politics, & people who already follow you can still see it. That’s how Taylor Swift reached her 283 million followers w/an endorsement of #KamalaHarris.
But it is a form of what #creators have long called “#shadowbanning”: reducing the reach of certain kinds of #content w/o being transparent about when it’s happening. Political campaigns, too, have been scrambling to find alternative ways to break through.
“As we’ve said for years, people have told us they want to see less #politics overall while still being able to engage w/political #content on our #platforms if they want to — & that’s exactly what we’ve been doing,” #Meta spox Corey Chambliss said…
[Remember]…in 2011 when #Zuckerberg live-streamed an interview w/Pres #Obama that explored how #SocialMedia would contribute to #democracy. “What #Facebook allows us to do is make sure this isn’t just a one-way conversation,” Obama said…
#tech #news
#Meta says it continues to run a program to point users to official information about registering & #voting. But it thinks the majority of Americans want less #politics on #SocialMedia. …most of us don’t want political vitriol or Russian #disinformation — but that’s not the same as respectful conversation. And Meta has complete control over 3 of the most widely used tools for [#online] self-expression.
#tech #internet #censorship
In the spring, Fodor joined other #creators in a letter to #Meta, saying it had abandoned its responsibility “to be an open & safe space for dialogue, conversation, & discussion.”
What Fodor finds particularly disempowering is that she doesn’t know when, or how, her work crosses the line.
Creators mostly have to guess, leaving them in a state of what you might call algorithmic anxiety. “It makes people more distrustful of these #SocialMedia platforms,” she says.
#Instagram never flagged any of her individual posts as being too political to recommend.
It is possible that Fodor’s political stuff isn’t popular because it isn’t as good. But the data suggests that isn’t likely. Looking at the details of her audience reports, Fowler could see that her political content was, on average, seen by significantly fewer people who aren’t her followers — suggesting that Instagram was putting a thumb on the scale.
& when people did see Fodor’s political posts, they were nearly 50X as likely to share them… in the #Instagram app.
#Zuckerberg has a #FirstAmendment right to make decisions about what to promote on his #platforms. But his #users deserve #transparency about what topics are limited — & how Instagram determines what’s over the line. #Meta declined to comment on the account, saying fluctuations in engagement are common & can ebb & flow for reasons that have nothing to do w/its policy.
Fowler sent #Meta questions about how it determines what to reduce. It wouldn’t detail what it means by “#political & social issues” beyond content potentially related to “things like #laws, #elections, or #social topics.”
How do its automated systems make these calls? Would mentioning Taylor Swift count as political? What about coconuts? Can it make a distinction between voting information & partisan bickering?
Fowler also asked #Meta for a list of forbidden keywords, after noticing that Fodor’s use of “#vote” in captions correlated to a steep audience drop. Meta wouldn’t share that, either, saying thousands of factors affect how #content is ranked & recommended.
In a statement earlier in the year, Meta defined “#social topics” as “content that identifies a problem that impacts people & is caused by the action or inaction of others, which can include issues like international relations or crime.”
#tech
But that *definition* could rule out wide swaths of the lived human experience, including people talking about their family in the #MiddleEast or simply being #gay or #trans.
“These are such integral parts of some people’s #identities & livelihoods — #Meta’s gone so far as to limit their capability to talk about who they are & what they care about,” says Zach Praiss, #AccountableTech’s campaigns director, who led the organization’s research.
How to increase the amount of political #content you get recommended on #Meta platforms 1/
#Instagram: Open the mobile app, go to Settings, then scroll down to Content preferences, then Political content, & choose "Don't limit political content from the people you don't follow"
How to increase the amount of political #content you get recommended on #Meta platforms 2/2
#Facebook: Go to the Menu then Settings & privacy, then Preferences, then Content preferences, then Manage defaults, then change Political content to "Show more"
#Threads: Open the mobile app, go to Settings, then Account, then Political content, then toggle on Suggest political content
@Nonilex
Easier still, don’t use meta’s services
@Nonilex
Sadly, threads doesn’t have an engagement bait toggle. So expect a torrent of urgent request to rank your toenails, and why your favourite film was crappy.
@Nonilex this question appears internally on occasion. The ban on political speech is wholly unfair to people whose existence has been politicized due to external actors. I don't think I've seen it addressed publically as the answer would be very sticky in a corporate setting.
@Nonilex ironically how social media companies rate/deliver conversation is a potential “social topic”
@Nonilex
I wonder if she could do some A/B testing to see how sensitive the filter is. I'm thinking of a couple of general purpose (non-political) posts done in two variants: one with the sign off line "And by the way: Cats" and the other with the sign off line "And by the way: Vote".
The hypothesis "maybe the political posts aren't as good" wouldn't come into play: it's literally a one word difference.