{"id":2624,"date":"2021-01-28T02:23:04","date_gmt":"2021-01-28T02:23:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thenextweb.com\/?p=1335851"},"modified":"2021-01-28T02:23:04","modified_gmt":"2021-01-28T02:23:04","slug":"zuckerberg-promises-facebook-will-show-less-political-content-from-now-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/?p=2624","title":{"rendered":"Zuckerberg promises Facebook will show less political content from now on"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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During Facebook\u2018s quarterly earnings call today, Mark Zuckerberg highlighted some major changes coming to Facebook. After years of being the primary news source for many people, Facebook has decided it wants to show less political content.<\/p>\n

According to Zuckerberg, \u201cthere has been a trend across society that a lot of things have become politicized and politics have had a way of creeping into everything.\u201d He noted<\/span> \u201cone of the top pieces of feedback\u201d that Facebook is hearing is that \u201cpeople don\u2019t want politics and fighting to take over their experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

To mitigate so the company is looking to reduce the amount of political content that shows up on people\u2019s feeds. The CEO didn\u2019t go into detail about how exactly Facebook would do so but said the change is a continuation of work Facebook has been \u201cdoing for a while to turn down the temperature and discourage divisive conversations.<\/p>\n

To that end, the company has also decided to permanently stop recommending political groups for users to join:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cWe have to balance this carefully because we do have deep commitment to free expression. If people want to discuss [politics] or join those groups, they should be able to do that. But we are not serving community well to be recommending that content right now.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The move follows a temporary pause<\/a> in such recommendations ahead of the US elections.<\/p>\n

My take:<\/strong> One could argue that this is a way for Facebook to shed responsibility, but at the same time, I could certainly do with fewer political arguments on social media. I prefer getting my news from authoritative sources, and when all people see is a headline and a blurb on social media \u2014 we\u2019ve seen that plenty of people don\u2019t actually read articles they share<\/a> \u2014 it\u2019s easy to get lost in the noise.<\/p>\n

Presumably, you\u2019ll still be able to see news from pages you\u2019re subscribed to, but the company could cut down on how often this content shows up on your feed. It\u2019s also possible Facebook will reduce the visibility of political content that people share themselves, which could help prevent the spread of misinformation.<\/p>\n

That said, I suspect it won\u2019t be long before right-wing groups attack such a change as a form of conservative censorship, even though at least some evidence so far suggests Facebook\u2019s algorithms have so far favored<\/em> right-wing sources<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Did you know we have a newsletter all about consumer tech? It\u2019s called Plugged In \u2013 and you can subscribe to it right here<\/a>. <\/i><\/p>\n

Published January 28, 2021 \u2014 02:23 UTC <\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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