- Prominent political accounts saw fewer views, study says
- Meta changed political stance to make services less combative
Photographer: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images North America
A new study found that several prominent, progressive Instagram accounts saw their reach decline by 65% on average in the months following Meta Platforms Inc.’s move to subdue political content on the app.
Over a roughly three-month period following the policy’s rollout in early March, researchers at Accountable Tech, a social media integrity nonprofit, gathered viewership data for five prominent Instagram accounts with a collective following of 13.5 million people, including those of Hillary Clinton and GLAAD, an LGBTQ activist group. Researchers found that posts from those accounts, which heavily feature topics such as voting information, reproductive rights and advocacy for marginalized groups, were seen by significantly fewer users than before Meta began reducing the spread of political content on the app.