Here’s how to keep politics out of your Instagram feed

Do you like yours? Instagram algorithmbut hate that political posts from accounts you don’t follow are missing? You’re in luck: Starting this week in the US (and next week for the rest of the world) Meta will start adding political content by default to your recommendations on Instagram and threads.

If you’re thinking, “Hey, didn’t Instagram take the exact opposite approach to this situation last year?” You’d be right. In February 2024The company announced that it will specifically not suggest political content from accounts you don’t follow. Unless you have actively searched for this content, you can browse the app at your leisure and find out what interests you have outside of politics.

However, it is no longer February 2024. January 2025 is a very different place for Instagram, Meta and the USA When Mark Zuckerberg drastically changes his policies When it comes to what you can say on Meta’s platforms, Instagram (and therefore Threads) is also making changes. Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram, took to threads to announce the changesand explained that while he still doesn’t think Meta should show political content to people whose accounts they don’t follow, “a lot of people have made it very clear that they want this content.”

In fact, it seems that my Instagram settings are already flipped, while my Threads settings are still the case. (But I have no doubt about it.) Without intervention, you are likely to see more political content that might upset, annoy, worry, or frustrate you. Fortunately, you can do something about it.

Remove political content from your Instagram and Threads feeds

Let’s start with Instagram: Open your profile and then tap the hamburger menu in the top right. Scroll down to the “What You See” section and then select “Suggested Content.” Here, tap on “Political Content” and you will find three options: standardthe default setting, which displays “some” suggested political content; See morethat shows you more political content, if that’s your thing; And See lesswhat the desired option is. Although the option’s name includes “less,” Instagram says it won’t share political content with you if it detects it. Therefore, removing most of the content you would have come into contact with should be enough.

However, if this is not the case, leave this page again and tap the switch next to Disable suggested posts in the feed. This will remove this type of content from your feed for the next 30 days. It’s not perfect, but at least you’ll have a month of peace.

Photo credit: Jake Peterson

These options should exist in threads in the same way, but accessing them is slightly different. Go to your profile again and then tap the hamburger menu. However, this time select “Account” and then “Political Content.” At the moment I still see the same thing Suggest political content Setting that is disabled by default.