Meta, the parent company of Instagram and Threads, has fixed a bug that caused users to believe their political content settings had been adjusted without their consent. This issue affected both platforms, resetting users’ content settings to the default, which limits the amount of political content they see from people they don’t follow.
On Wednesday, Meta acknowledged the problem and started working on a solution. Later that evening, Andy Stone, Meta’s Communication Director, announced in a Threads post that the bug had been resolved. He clarified that Meta hadn’t actually changed anyone’s political content settings on the backend; it only appeared that way. Despite the false appearance of resetting selections, no actual changes had been made.
While Meta didn’t provide details about how the bug originated, Stone encouraged users to check their settings to ensure they now reflect their preferences. To do this, users can go to Instagram’s Settings, scroll down to “Content Preferences,” and select “Political content.” From there, they can choose whether they want to limit political content from people they follow. This setting affects suggestions in Explore, Reels, Feed Recommendations, Suggested Users, and also applies to Threads.
The introduction of this control earlier this year was a strategic move by Meta to distance itself from accusations of influencing people through its apps, especially in the lead-up to the U.S. elections. The tech giant has faced criticism from both Republicans and Democrats. Republicans have accused Meta of censoring free speech, while Democrats have criticized the company for being too lenient on misinformation and disinformation. Shortly after the launch of Threads, House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan sent a letter to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg questioning the app’s content moderation policies.
In response to the backlash faced by Meta, the company announced that it would no longer proactively recommend political content. This decision sparked a backlash from creators. The existence of a political content setting underscores the power of algorithmically-driven social apps, where content is displayed based on various factors rather than a simple chronological feed of followed accounts. Startups like Bluesky and other federated networks are exploring alternative models for moderating and blocking content. Bluesky, for example, allows users to create their own feeds and subscribe to moderation services. However, these alternatives have much smaller user bases compared to Threads’ 170 million monthly active users and Instagram’s over 2 billion monthly users.
Fortunately, the bug was fixed before the first political debate of 2024 between Trump and Biden on Thursday night, providing relief for Instagram and Threads users.