On Wednesday, Facebook announced that their algorithm would no longer suggest users join civic or political groups.
What We Know:
- According to NBC News, the permanent decision comes as an effort to limit the amount of political content that users see in their news feed. This is a direct response to the backlash Facebook received for encouraging and inciting violence that occurred during the attack on the Capitol on January 6th. The last time the company placed a temporary ban on recommending political groups was back in October, leading up to the U.S. 2020 elections.
- Following the attack, Politico reports that the Democratic party called on Facebook and similar social media companies to “overhaul their recommendations and algorithms to reduce the spread of incendiary, divisive and violent content on their platforms.” Thet claimed that the platform had created an unregulated “digital echo chamber” that exposed users to extremist content and played a significant role in radicalizing rioters who stormed the Capitol.
“Perhaps no single entity is more responsible for the spread of dangerous conspiracy theories at scale or for inflaming anti-government grievance than the one that you started and that you oversee today as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer,” Democrats wrote in a letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
- Days after the siege, Facebook released a blog post claiming that the platform was “not recommending civic groups for people to join.” However, an investigation conducted by The Markup found that Facebook continued to recommend political groups to its users throughout December.
- “We found 12 political groups among the top 100 groups recommended to the more than 1,900 Facebook users in our Citizen Browser project, which tracks links and group recommendations served to a nationwide panel of Facebook users,” The Markup wrote. The company also claims Facebook continued to recommend political groups throughout January, despite the blog post they released on January 11th.
- Zuckerberg spoke in favor of the decision stating, “This is a continuation of work we’ve been doing for a while to turn down the temperature and discourage divisive conversations. One of the top pieces of feedback that we’re hearing from our community right now is that people don’t want politics and fighting to take over their experience on our services.”
It is unclear when these changes will take effect.
