Are you noticing less political content on your Instagram feed? The answer may lie in your content preferences settings. Many Instagram users have noted recently that they have been seeing fewer posts on their feeds regarding various political topics and discourse. With journalists covering the crisis in Palestine being increasingly shadowbanned and deleted by Meta this update comes as a disappointing, but unsurprising addition to the platform’s interface.
In content preferences, “political content” is set to “limit” by default. Many users have been quick to criticize this, seeing as it allows Meta to control the content they view, rather than showing similar content to what users interact with.
Users have additionally commented on the timeframe in which this update has arrived— the war in Palestine has been documented by a variety of journalists via social media. Furthermore, in mid-March, Meta suspended the account of prominent Palestinian journalist, Motaz Azaiza who had been documenting the war in Gaza for 108 days.