The decision is a response to feedback from users who want to see fewer political posts on the platform, the company said.

Meta, the company that manages the platforms of Facebook, announced that it will change the way political content is distributed on the social network for Brazilian users. The information was published by the company this Thursday (7.Jul.2022).

The decision is a response to Facebook’s tests of the change ranking on the network in Brazil. “Starting today, we will be placing less emphasis on comments and shares in determining the distribution of political content on Facebook in the country.“, says the publication of the company.

Meta had previously announced the reduction of the relevance of comments and shares for the distribution of this content, on May 24, 2022.”When we asked people who had experienced this change, they told us that they had seen less content in their feeds that they didn’t find useful.“, says the company.

In February 2021, Facebook announced an experiment in which it would reduce the posting of political content on Facebook. to feed network news. Brazil were part of the 1st group of tests, alongside Canada and Indonesia.

At the time, the company said it often received the feedback users that they did not want political content to prevail in their flow.

search by Power 360Meta informed 2 hours after the publication of this text that it would consider other signals as to whether or not to disclose certain political content, such as “who posted the content and when; whether you have interacted with this person, page or group in the past; and if the message is a photo, a video or a link, among many others”.

In the note, the company also said it observed “a reduction in instances of hate speech and disinformation” with less emphasis on comments and shares. Meta states that it seeks to reduce this type of content, which they define as “problem”from the platform.

When asked if he considered the change could impact access to election information in Brazil in an election year, Meta said he was working with the TSE (Superior Electoral Court) to “ensure people have access to official election information on Facebook“. Read the full answer:

“This change is the result of feedback we’ve received from people who would like to see less political content in their feeds. We’ve worked with the TSE (Tribunal Supérieur Eleitoral) to ensure people have access to official information about the Election on Facebook Since December, we’ve added tags to posts about politics and elections, directing people to the Election Justice website with official information about the voting system and articles rebutting fake news about the In the first few months since we started adding these tags, hits to the Electoral Justice website homepage have increased nearly 10-fold.

“In addition, we recently posted at the top of the Facebook feed a reminder to people over 16 in Brazil about the deadline for regularizing or issuing voter registration. We will also have an alert in the News Feed about voting days and from which people can search for official information about the election and its polling district. Although voting is compulsory in the country, the tool is important given the abstention rates in electoral cycles.