Instagram and Threads will now recommend political content

In a move users are calling "embarrassing" and lacking "courage," Instagram and Threads head Adam Mosseri announced that the platforms will be recommending political content to users once again. "As per @zuck’s post yesterday about free expression yesterday [sic], starting this week in the US, and rolling out over the coming week to the rest of the world, we're going to be adding political content to recommendations on @Threads and adjusting the political content control to three options: less, standard, the default, and more," Mosseri said on a post on Threads, referring to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg's Tuesday announcement that the social media giant is getting rid of its fact-checkers. SEE ALSO: Fury over Meta's relaxed hate speech policies: "I really think this is a precursor for genocide" "I’ve maintained very publicly and for a long time that it not our place to show people political content from accounts they don’t follow, but (1) a lot of people have been very clear that they want this content, and (2) it’s proven impractical to draw a red line around what is and is not political content," Mosseri continued. "Our intention is to introduce political recommendations in a responsible and personalized way, which means more for people who want this content and less for those who do not. Our plan is to continue to listen to feedback, learn, and iterate over the next few months. Thank you for your patience." As Mosseri noted, this comes just two days after Meta, the company that owns Instagram and Threads, announced it is replacing fact-checkers with Community Notes, along with lifting prohibitions against some discriminatory and hateful rhetoric on its platforms. Within these new guidelines, women can be called property, ethnic groups can be called "filth," and gay people can be called "mentally ill," for instance. Many human rights organizations (and many users) point out that this move suspiciously comes as President-elect Donald Trump prepares to rules the next po