Wow, this is kind of the beginning of the end of these platforms having essentially unlimited immunity from the content they host.
I am of two minds on this - on one hand, do we really want Meta, a knowing producer of wildly attention-addictive products, to be the ones directing public discourse? No. Of course we don’t.
On the other hand, it’s clear Meta and the rest of the platforms are legitimately scared, and are going to wind down anything even slightly problematic, which is a bummer for the free web.
On balance this is probably a net positive for society as a whole, so I’m supportive of this change.
The political discourse on Meta isn't politics, though, it's the simalcrum of politics.
It's controversial national issues - that sometimes aren't even happening - and hot takes. There's no governance discourse, there's no actual organising or calls to action, it's just 'x happened, scream about how bad the other side are here.'
If it were actual politics the division problem wouldn't be so bad.
How do you figure this is the beginning of the end? Haven’t these platforms been making editorial decisions to shape their coherent speech product more or less since Stratton Oakmont?
It’s an editorial decision. Choosing the type of social media platform you want to build and the types of posts and posting types you want to support is all an editorial decision.
Always has been.
I’m pretty happy about this. I started losing interest in Threads the moment the politics started showing up which didn’t take very damn long.
The main reason I deactivated Facebook in the Fall of 2016 was because I was inundated with far too much damn political news. I think the rage inducing political stuff is a pretty big reason for many to disengage with many of these services
Where any political content that aligns with the platform's ideology is considered "the truth", not politics, and will be allowed to be spread, whereas any political content that does not align will be deplatformed.
Actually it kinda seems like they are just going to blanket ban everything political, regardless. They have said publicly they do not want to be the arbiter of truth - so this is them trying to remove themselves entirely from that role.
You can't even discuss pop music or sports without it being deemed as political by a loud segment of the internet. Who gets to decide what is and what is not "political"?
They care about what you think in direct proportion to your stake in their company, which is probably quite modest compared to major shareholders. This is the "I pay your taxes" to a cop moment, they know, but they also know you pay a fraction of a penny of a their salary.
They already have it pretty well defined on the ads side. If you run an ad and it’s about “issues of national importance” or social issues of any kind (non-profit, education, politics, public health etc) then the ads require additional review.
I'm not going to say that anyone reacted to the headline rather than the body of the article, I'm just going to leave a few quotes here that might help if that's what happened.
> Meta will no longer recommend political content to users on Instagram or Threads, according to Instagram boss Adam Mosseri. He said that users will still see political content from accounts they follow, but the apps will no longer “proactively amplify” such posts.
So it's giving people an option, and even better, an opt-in option. That seems like the furthest thing from controversy to me.
For people asking what their definition of political is:
> Mosseri didn’t elaborate on how Meta will determine what counts as “political,” but a Meta spokesperson said it would include election-related topics and social issues.
> “Our definition of political content is content likely to be about topics related to government or elections; for example, posts about laws, elections, or social topics,” the spokesperson said. “These global issues are complex and dynamic, which means this definition will evolve as we continue to engage with the people and communities who use our platforms and external experts to refine our approach.”
And for the people who might be wondering if this will apply to accounts they already follow...
> While Meta will limit its suggestions related to these topics by default, those who do want to see such content will be able to opt-in via Instagram and Threads’ settings. The company said the update won’t affect how people see posts from accounts they’ve chosen to follow. “Our goal is to preserve the ability for people to choose to interact with political content, while respecting each person’s appetite for it,” Mosseri said.
Watch them categorize removing fuel car bans as political while not marking climate change polices as such.
These measures are meaningless because defining what's political can really be a way to just shut the opposition down, no matter which side you are on.
I made a comment about how a specific NYT article treats accusations as evidence and "it is damaging to their brand" and my comment got removed for "supporting dangerous groups"
Most "political" content on these platforms is actually ideological content, which is worthless.
The difference between the two is that political content is things that mostly facts about the political processes, and pretty much non existant on any social media. Whereas the ideological content that is prevalent on social media is the narrative pushing, virtue signaling opinions of people that dgaf about truth.
I am of two minds on this - on one hand, do we really want Meta, a knowing producer of wildly attention-addictive products, to be the ones directing public discourse? No. Of course we don’t.
On the other hand, it’s clear Meta and the rest of the platforms are legitimately scared, and are going to wind down anything even slightly problematic, which is a bummer for the free web.
On balance this is probably a net positive for society as a whole, so I’m supportive of this change.