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.
Researchers wanted to see how many views each account received following the policy change, which meant the five participating accounts had to share weekly reach data from their Instagram Insights pages throughout the period of the study. The average weekly reach per post across the five accounts fell an estimated 65% over the 10-week period.
The study is among the first to quantify the effects of Instagram’s decision to limit political content from its recommendation algorithms unless a user opts in to seeing such posts. Meta executives say people will still see political posts from accounts they follow, just not from accounts they don’t, and their aim is to foster a more positive experience for users. But critics say the company’s definition of political is unclear, and is stifling credible information from activists, news organizations and marginalized creators during an unprecedented global election year.
“Millions of people are using it on a daily basis for many, many hours,” said Zach Praiss, Accountable Tech’s campaigns director who led the research. “It’s a place where I think it’s important for people to have the ability to talk about what matters to them in a safe, productive manner.”
Meta has increasingly stepped back from politics in recent years after critics accused the company of amplifying misinformation and partisan bias. The company announced the update to Instagram and Threads, its X competitor, in a February blog post, which described political content as “potentially related to things like laws, elections, or social topics.”
“We don’t think it’s our place to amplify political news,” Instagram boss Adam Mosseri told Bloomberg in June, citing examples like abortion, the war in Gaza and the US presidential election. “We don’t think it’s our place to show you a hot take on a political issue from an account you do not follow and therefore you did not ask for it.”
“We think that comes along with too many problems to be worth any potential upside there might be on engagement or revenue,” he added.
A Meta spokesperson said that it’s possible the decline in views was the result of other factors, and pointed out that ebbs and flows in reach are common. He also pointed Bloomberg to the company’s post from February, and previous statements from Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg, who claimed that user feedback confirmed people are tired of political fights on his platforms.
The decision to decrease the reach of political content drew an outcry from mainly left-leaning creators and groups who were concerned it would suppress information on social injustice. As part of the study, Accountable Tech said it sought participants from both sides of the political spectrum, but left-leaning accounts were the only ones who volunteered.
One of the survey’s participants was @Feminist, an Instagram account with nearly 6 million followers that posts explainers on global news topics, including reproductive rights, LGBTQ movements and affordable access to menstrual products. @Feminist co-founder Ky Polanco said that she’s observed a demonstrable fall in reach over the past several months, and posts discussing abortion rights seem to be impacted more than others.
“For an average post, let’s say we’re reaching 1 million people. With our abortion-related content, it’s reaching about 300,000,” Polanco said, who added that engagement like comments and likes hasn’t been impacted. “It’s just not hitting the amount of people that we would expect on such important, vital news.”
Polanco said she is relieved to know her experience isn’t just an isolated issue, and that other prominent accounts are noticing the same. She fears Meta’s policy may prevent the spread of breaking news and information pertaining to women’s rights, voting, mental health and LGBTQ communities, and believes the value of those discussions should outweigh Meta’s goal of lightening the mood.
“However Meta sees their platform, ultimately the consumers are going to decide how they use the platform,” Polanco said. “They should really just give the community what they want versus telling us what we can see.”