Facebook muted political content despite ‘high and inefficient’ costs: Report
Christopher Hutton
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Facebook attempted to mute the majority of political posts in its efforts to avoid controversy, according to internal documents.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his team had Facebook demote “sensitive” posts on the newsfeed in the months after the Jan. 6 riots, according to internal documents reviewed by the Wall Street Journal. The demotion was encouraged to counter critics’ claims that the Big Tech giant profited from promoting political and controversial content on its platform. While the effort helped make Facebook appear less political, it hurt traditional publishers and user satisfaction.
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The social platform could have achieved its goal of appearing less political by demoting political and community content, an internal analysis concluded, but doing so would come at a “high and inefficient cost.”
The demotion also had detrimental effects on its users. Traditional news outlets such as CNN and Fox News saw their content go down by 40% to 60% in engagement, while less trustworthy outlets saw their engagement rise. Users also reported dissatisfaction with the platform and donated less through Facebook’s fundraising feature.
The company tested the features in the U.S. and Canadian markets and intended to roll them out on a wider basis in the summer of 2022. However, the costs involved led Zuckerberg to end the program change by the end of June 2022.
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“As Mark said almost two years ago, people wanted to see less politics overall on Facebook while still being able to engage with political content if they want to, and that’s exactly what we’ve been doing,” a Facebook spokeswoman told the Wall Street Journal. “Over the last several years, we tested various approaches, ultimately implementing changes that reduce politics, while giving people the experiences they want.” The Big Tech giant claims that political content only makes up 3% of its content today, as opposed to 6% of posts in 2020.
These efforts arose as Facebook was also profiting from inflammatory content due to the algorithm favoring outrage and sensationalist posts. The company has been regularly accused of profiting off of hateful and violent content. The company is being sued for $2 billion over allegations that its algorithm had stoked hate and violence during the Ethiopian civil war.