By Susan Ampers
- Facebook revealed its plan to temporarily reduce the visibility of political content in Canada, Brazil, Indonesia and the United States.
- This is due to the democratic lawmakers who warned Facebook to take more aggressive action in restricting its algorithms’ recommendation of political content after January’s violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
- As a response, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on Wednesday that he will turn down the temperature of online debates after January’s deadly Capitol siege.
- To take action, the social media giant started experimenting to control its algorithm that will retrain the spread of false claims and alarming distortion of information on news feed of a small percentage of users in Canada, Brazil and Indonesia this week and the US in the coming weeks.
- Zuckerberg declared last month that the company would make its policy of not recommending political groups “permanent” to discourage provocative conversations and to avoid magnifying false claims about the election results.
- Facebook has announced that it will only affect a small number of users where health organizations such as the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, World Health Organization and official accounts for government services and agencies are exempted.
- Accounts for politicians and public officials, however, will not be exempted from the policy, a Facebook spokesperson confirmed.
- Facebook staffers reported that the nicer news feed remains permanent but management has stated that the change is temporary.
Additional Info:
Breitbart News: Facebook Will ‘Temporarily Reduce’ Visibility of Political Content
Politico: Facebook to pilot new ways to reduce political content
