I don’t use Instagram, but I also don’t want any politics in my cereal, so that would be fine here.
Personally I wouldn’t be affected by this since it only affects recommendations, but the issue is that Meta gets to decide what is “political”.
Nearly everything has a political component to it, and this can be an excuse for hiding content that the company doesn’t want as many people to see. Activism for example is “political”.
Having the option to set the flag would be nice for those who want a filtered feed. I’m just suspicious I guess ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I see nothing wrong in this.
This should have been communicated.
Other than that its a good thing in my book!
reach normal people who might not otherwise hear a message that they need to hear, like, abortion is on the ballot in Florida, or voting is happening today
Uhm, maybe that’s a good thing, you don’t want people with single digit brain cells to vote anyways. How is it possible to rely on Instagram to remember to vote? Don’t you get a letter that you’re allowed to vote on date x? At least in my country you do.
Edit: why is this downvoted? Are people really this dumb to not know when or whom to vote for? Why do they need Instagram for that? Wtf?? Are people not reading actual news anymore?
In my country it’s a big deal because voting is mandatory and you get a fine if you don’t vote.
Yes. I think it’s important too. Not sure what people read in my comment. Yet why should people rely on Instagram to know to vote? Instagram is a social media that has nothing to do with real world or politics of a country. Not sure if you read the article or the quote. Again why should people rely on Instagram for any of that what has to do with real world politics? Why are people depending on that? I don’t go to Lemmy or Reddit or Facebook either to inform myself on who or when to vote.
Yet why should people rely on Instagram to know to vote?
Nobody said they should. But people are idiots and make conclusions from what they read in there anyway, so they should be liable if they spread misinformation or if they, like Facebook, contributed to a coup in Myanmar or had a role in the attempt of taking the US Capitol.
Instagram is a social media that has nothing to do with real world or politics of a country.
You really need to live inside a jar to believe that nonsense.
Remember Cambridge Analytica? One of the selling arguments to the Trump campaign was that they helped the triumph in my country of a right-wing party by using Facebook. So “nothing to do with real world or politics”? Fuck that noise.
In the US at least, voter suppression like you are suggesting is a big part of why Trump got elected in the first place and why Republicans keep getting elected. Republicans especially try to keep working class minority communities from voting because they (the minority communities) statically prefer Democrats.
What? I’m not suggesting voters suppression. It’s about Instagram, what has this to do with voters suppression? Don’t you get informed about incoming vote by a letter? I even quoted the part of the news article, did you read it?
No, we don’t get letters in the mail about elections. The options are news, radio, or look it up yourself outside of social media. With streaming so popular, people don’t see near as many ads as they used to on their TV. That leaves social media as the biggest informer of upcoming elections and to hear about issues.
So if you turn that setting off, I assume your timeline is completely overtaken by alt-right propaganda and boomer memes. This is Facebook (er… Meta) after all.
