Facebook Reluctantly Political Content Appears On Its Platform Again

Facebook plans to suppress the spread of political news. (photo; Dawid Sokolowski / Unsplash)

JAKARTA - Facebook plans to suppress the spread of political news and current events content in News Feeds. Especially after getting support from various parties, including users for the change.

The company confirmed in a blog post that it will expand its testing to reduce breaking news and political content inside and outside the United States (US), such as Costa Rica, Sweden, Spain and Ireland.

First reported by Axios, Wednesday, September 1, the change could reduce traffic to news publishers or accounts that post too much political content, based on negative user feedback.

While most news publishers rely on Facebook traffic as their business model, conservative news outlets generally benefit the most because right-wing populism is more attractive, according to a Facebook executive.

For your information, this move is part of Facebook's gradual effort to make its user experience less political and controversial.

According to The Independent, the company will also reduce its emphasis on comments and upload sharing capabilities. A high comment rate with a low number of likes is generally considered a sign of a negative user response to a post.

Earlier this year, Facebook began testing restrictions on political content in News Feed in the US, Canada, Brazil and Indonesia. In January, the social media said it would stop providing recommendations for users to join civic and political groups.

After the 2020 general election, Facebook tried again to limit the amount of political content users interact with on its platform, but is still frequently criticized for the amount of political misinformation it distributes.

Current events and current news content are more likely to be exploited by bad actors for misinformation, as news about new events is difficult to fact check as they unfold.

Facebook reveals political topics account for only a fraction of 6 percent of overall user-engaged content, although it's not clear exactly how the company defines political content.

Facebook plans to roll out these changes in stages, so as not to catch too many news and political publishers off guard. It is likely to expand its testing over time to more countries.