Instagram accounts hit hard by Meta’s political content rules

Prominent Instagram accounts have seen their reach drop by 65% on average after Meta imposed restrictions on political content earlier this year, according to a new study.

Meta’s decision to limit the reach of political content on Instagram has led to a steep drop in the reach of several prominent, progressive Instagram accounts that regularly posted credible political content, the study found.

Researchers from Accountable Tech, an advocacy group, tracked five Instagram accounts with a combined following of almost 13.5 million people, including accounts of Hillary Clinton and GLAAD, an LGBTQ activist organization.

The accounts were asked to share their Instagram account insights analytics data to measure the change in average reach per piece of content over a study period. The study covered the period between March 8th to May 24th, shortly after Meta announced changes in how it shares political content.

In an effort to create “a great experience for everyone,” Meta moved to restrict political content across Instagram and Threads, its rival to X, in February. The company was criticized over unclear definition of what constitutes political content and how it filters it.

Critics argued that the policy had a potential to undermine credible content and advocacy including topics like climate change, gun violence prevention, LGBTQ rights, and election information.

The new study suggests that these concerns may have been well-founded, with activists claiming Meta is “deprioritizing” credible political content that is focused on political education, activism, and mobilization in an important election year.

“Amidst several elections worldwide, this new default setting compromises the way we share and receive thoughtful and accurate information, which has ripple effects on democratic processes, social justice, and human rights,” said Nicole Gill, executive director at Accountable Tech.

“Beyond its broad effect on society and democracy, it demonstrates Meta’s unchecked power over their millions of users and how quickly they can disrupt the lives of creators and the millions of brands and campaigns that invest in creators to tell their story or sell a product,” Gill said.

Cybernews has reached out to Meta for comment. In remarks to Bloomberg, the company’s spokesperson said it was possible that the decline in views was the result of other factors, noting that fluctuations on reach was common.

However, GLAAD said that Meta’s apparent characterization of some social topics as political content was “extremely concerning,” as was reducing the reach of such content “in this systematic way.”

“These findings reveal how extraordinarily problematic this is and show the outsized power that Meta has over what we see online. Meta should stop this practice now, so that platform users can continue to engage with the most important issues facing society and politics today,” GLAAD said.