Facebook says it will test a reduction of political content in News Feed for some users in Canada, Brazil, and Indonesia this week, and the US in coming weeks
News feeds will start getting less political content in Canada, Brazil and Indonesia, the social network said, with the change reaching the U.S. in coming weeks.
New York Times
Context & Ripple Effects
Facebook had already given some U.S. users controls over political advertising through a political-ad opt-out, separating ad preferences from the broader question of how much political material the News Feed itself distributes. This test moves that editorial control to Facebook's ranking system across Canada, Brazil, Indonesia, and eventually the U.S.
Selected users in the initial markets see less political material in News Feed, while Facebook measures the response before extending the change to U.S. users.
Political and current-events posts lose some immediate distribution among the test cohort because News Feed ranking, rather than user ad settings, determines their visibility.
News organizations and political publishers that depend on News Feed reach face a less predictable distribution channel as Facebook shifts ranking away from those categories.
Third-order effects
Facebook's subsequent international expansion indicates that political-content reduction can become a default ranking policy rather than a market-specific experiment, concentrating editorial discretion in the platform's feed design.
If platforms increasingly separate political material from the main feed, publishers and political actors will need distribution strategies less dependent on algorithmic recommendations.
The trend: Major social platforms are moving from optional controls over political content toward feed-ranking policies that reduce its default reach at scale.
FB exec: “We're not removing political content from Facebook altogether. Our goal is to preserve the ability for people to find and interact with political content on Facebook, while respecting each person's appetite for it at the top of their News Feed.” https://about.fb.com/...
Zuckerberg hinted at depoliticizing FB last month — now the company is testing it — reducing political content in News Feed “for a small percentage of people” in Brazil, Indonesia and Canada this week. More to come https://www.cnn.com/...
We're not removing political content from #Facebook altogether, however, over the next few months, we'll work to better understand peoples' varied preferences for political content and test a number of approaches based on those insights. ➡️ https://about.fb.com/...
After years of reducing prominence of news in “News Feed”, and steps to silo news, FB now announce steps to reduce prominence of political content. Wrote back in 2017 why such steps might be rational for for-profit companies, but problematic in other ways https://www.niemanlab.or…
This is inadvertently revealing how powerful Facebook is. It can turn off “political” content for “some” users? In this case targeting countries but imagine if it selectively turned down “political” content based on, eg demographics, use of certain keywords, etc. https://twitter.…
Facebook will start showing some users less political content - Test will be limited to Facebook users in Canada, Brazil + Indonesia - It will be expanded to U.S. shortly - Content from official gov agencies + services will be exempt from the change https://www.nytimes.com/...