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 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.
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.
Edit: being emotionally unguarded online isnt a bad thing, just… not without trusting the website in the same way you would with a trust fall. This was aimed more at Tik-tok like sites.
IG, if I’m not mistaken its kind of like Tik-tok in that its a shotgun blast of random, emotionally charged ideas. Because the consumer is actively positioned to engage with the content in an unshielded emotional state (the player actively discourages/disallows pausing that would give you time to emotionally or mentally digest what you are watching, its also so simple you don’t need to). With this setup, the user is uncritically (almost like hypnosis) influenced by what users make and then what Facebook spins it to mean. No matter how manipulative it may be.
This feels like a patch over a broken system to protect them from the parasitic ideas the users would be vulnerable to, as well as genuine activism, trans people, and other false-positives the “political” filter picks up.
Facebook would just apply a secret global filter for ideas they don’t want you to see, only placing the manipulation into the “political” filter when they need a scapegoat and the ability to look progressive.
When I think of Instagram, I think of selfies, food pics, landscapes, pet pics and other pretty pics.
Political feuds online can be nasty right? There are long toxic conversations. Folks spend much time arguing on the platform. Meta likes that long session. But it seems Meta is promoting positivity? Seems Meta wants a long positive session.
Have you peeked your head into IG recently? I spend a lot of time there, some of the content and specially the comments sections are just absolutely unhinged. More than any other platform I’ve been on too, it’s a relatively new thing it started happening about 2 years ago. It’s actually a good time, reminds me of the internet circa 2008.
specially the comments sections are just absolutely unhinged. More than any other platform I’ve been on too
Woah, even worse than the shitfest that is YouTube comments?
Right? I cannot believe how consistently toxic ig comments are, even on the most unsuspecting videos. I’m surprised this isn’t talked about more often. The constant sexism is just jading. Negative comments skyrocket to the top of the comment section because they get the most replies, and there is no down voting functionality. But I think it’s gotten slightly better recently? I wonder if the limiting of political content has anything to do with it. Maybe ig is actually trying to improve their platform.
I think this is a great thing. Algorithm-driven political content recommendations are a major reason why the US is so divided right now. If we reduce the amount of political content people see online (for everyone on the political spectrum) then I think that’s a great way to combat division. The upcoming election shitshow won’t be as bad if people aren’t constantly seeing content online designed to enrage them.
I have seen trans creators in IG reporting that they are being filtered by this setting, so that’s not great.
Were they posting things re laws related to gender? If yes, maybe Instagram treated those as political and maybe those content didn’t reach many folks – due to the limit setting discussed in the article.
No, mostly just regular posts, meta just decided that being trans is “political”.
