Zuckerberg says Facebook will stop recommending civic and political groups to users permanently and is considering reducing political content in News Feeds
Facebook had already paused recommendations for political and social-issue groups before Election Day; making that election-period restriction permanent turns a temporary distribution safeguard into a standing product rule.
The move extends Facebook's earlier use of distribution limits for private groups tied to health advice or violence, while putting the News Feed itself under review as the next control point.
First-order effects
Civic and political groups on Facebook lose recommendations as a user-acquisition channel on a permanent basis, even when the groups remain available on the service.
Facebook must apply a durable distinction between content users choose to access and groups its systems actively promote, while it evaluates less political material in News Feed.
If Facebook continues to restrict algorithmic amplification across groups and feeds, political participation on the platform becomes more dependent on direct follows, searches, and sharing than recommendation-driven discovery.
The pattern points to platform governance being embedded in ranking and recommendation design, not limited to rule enforcement against individual posts or accounts.
The trend: Facebook is moving from episodic political-content interventions toward persistent limits on algorithmic distribution for civic activity.
Mark Zuckerberg just said Facebook will permanently take political groups out of recommendations globally and is working on ways to reduce political content in News Feed bc “people don't want politics and fighting to take over” their experience
Good idea, but there are lots of good ideas that have been ignored by @facebook once the press hit goes out. The media should stop reporting these announcements until they see real quantifiable changes. If they want credit, they should open up their algorithm for researchers. htt…
I'm sure this will go swimmingly, as all sweeping global decisions do. Meanwhile, how many language groups out there have less than one Facebook content moderator per million users? https://twitter.com/...
Facebook to downplay politics on its platform https://www.axios.com/... Are they going to change the algorithm to allow more local news that matters to people too? Doubtful.
On the first day an internet troll conspirator goes down on Federal charges, NOW Zuck is pulling back from politics? Too late. He's liable. https://twitter.com/...
it is extremely healthy for democracy that the billionaires who tell us what to do are deciding people shouldn't participate in it anymore https://www.axios.com/... https://twitter.com/...
Oh cool, we're at this part of the cycle again. Pretty sure prioritising quality news comes next, then only prioritising friends and family content, then I think we go back to this https://twitter.com/...
@karissabe And once again, I must ask ARE THEY TALKING ABOUT JUST THE UNITED STATES? Will this apply to his buddy, Duterte? His best pal, Modi? Will it only be in English? Someone ask the damn questions!
I bet anyone US$20 that this will not happen. He's blowing hot air once again. I really don't know why anyone takes anything this guy says seriously. How many times does one man get to lie before people stop listening? https://twitter.com/...
Facebook could have done this years ago but it chose not to. If this bullshit attempt even happens (nothing has been implemented), it will be circumvented, manipulated, and quickly rendered useless. The only solution is to replace the News Feed. https://twitter.com/...
Classic case of too little, too late. Facebook will stop recommending political groups to users permanently (not sure if this applies to markets like India yet) https://www.cnbc.com/...
This is one of the things we asked for in our recent letter to Facebook, because the platform's recommendation algorithm pushes people further into their ideological corners, and helps extreme groups recruit members. So - a good step, but we'll see how it works in practice. https…
This political content reduction bit plays out exactly one way: they drown most publisher links in feeds and promote “trusted publishers” in some soft of “Trending” news widget revamp, thereby kicking themselves back to this and restarting the awful cycle https://gizmodo.com/... …
If @Facebook sticks with this, this could be a very big deal. FB's decisions on content and algorithms have been a major vector for the worldwide superspread of political disinformation. https://twitter.com/...
In other news, Big Oil will solve climate change for us any day now, they promise! Facebook is incompetent by design - it has a near-perfect record of failure on this front. They won't do anything, unless they're forced to. https://twitter.com/...
There is reason to doubt this promise or at least believe that Facebook won't be able to completely follow through. Zuckerberg told a Senate committee under oath last year that FB would be temporarily stopping these political group recs but they still continued into 2021. https:/…
@sarafischer Wait. Wouldn't it be more accurate to say Facebook DECLARED or PLEDGED or HOPES to stop providing recommendations for political groups? Because it didn't actually do that before.