Facebook wants to reduce political content in News Feed

Facebook plans to reduce political content in the news feed

Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg on Wednesday said the social network will no longer recommend politics-themed groups to users, a measure already taken in the US due to election tensions. On a conference call with analysts, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Facebook is considering steps it can take to reduce the amount of political content in the News Feed.

“One of the top pieces of feedback that we’re hearing from our community right now is that people don’t want politics and fighting to take over their experience on our services,” Zuckerberg said. Ahead of the US presidential election, Facebook stopped recommending civic and political groups to its users. Now, it plans to keep them out of recommendations for the long term globally, Zuckerberg said. When combining Facebook’s various apps, including Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp, the company reported 3.3 billion monthly active users, an increase of 14% year-over-year. “We had a strong end to the year as people and businesses continued to use our services during these challenging times,” Zuckerberg said in a statement. He added that Facebook would also reduce political content in users’ main news feeds as part of a push “to turn down the temperature and discourage divisive conversation.”