(Bloomberg) — The reach of several well-known progressive Instagram accounts fell by an average of 65% in the months following Meta Platforms Inc.’s move to restrict political content on the app, according to a new study.
Over a period of about three months after the policy was implemented in early March, researchers at Accountable Tech, a social media integrity nonprofit, collected viewership data for five well-known Instagram accounts with a total of 13.5 million followers, including those of Hillary Clinton and GLAAD, an LGBTQ activist group. The researchers found that posts from these accounts, which focus heavily on issues 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.
The researchers wanted to see how many views each account received after the policy change. This meant requiring the five participating accounts to share weekly reach data from their Instagram Insights pages throughout the study period. The average weekly reach per post of the five accounts dropped by an estimated 65% over the course of the 10-week period.
The study is one of the first to quantify the impact of Instagram’s decision to remove political content from its recommendation algorithms unless a user explicitly consents to seeing such posts. Meta officials say people will still see political posts from accounts they follow, just not from accounts they don’t follow, and that their goal is to provide a more positive experience for users. But critics say the company’s definition of “political” is unclear and suppresses credible information from activists, news organizations and marginalized creators in an unprecedented global election year.
“Millions of people use it for many, many hours every day,” said Zach Praiss, campaign director at Accountable Tech, which led the research. “I think it’s a place where it’s important for people to be able to talk about things that matter to them in a safe and productive way.”
Meta has increasingly backed away from politics in recent years after critics accused the company of spreading misinformation and partisan bias. The company announced the update for Instagram and Threads, its X competitor, in a February blog post that described political content as “potentially tied to things like laws, elections or social issues.”
“We don’t believe it’s our job to cover political news,” Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri told Bloomberg in June, citing examples such as abortion, the war in Gaza and the U.S. presidential election. “We don’t believe it’s our job to show you a hot take on a political issue from an account you don’t follow and therefore didn’t request.”
“We believe this creates too many problems to be worth the potential benefits in terms of engagement or revenue,” he added.
A spokesperson for Meta said the drop in views may have been due to other factors and noted that fluctuations in reach are normal. He also referred Bloomberg to the company’s February post and previous statements from CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who claimed user feedback showed people were fed up with political fighting on his platforms.
The decision to reduce the reach of political content sparked an outcry, particularly from left-leaning creators and groups who feared it would suppress information about social injustice. For the study, Accountable Tech sought participants from both sides of the political spectrum, but left-leaning accounts were the only ones that volunteered.
One of the survey participants was @Feminist, an Instagram account with nearly 6 million followers that posts statements on global news issues, including reproductive rights, LGBTQ movements and affordable access to menstrual products. @Feminist co-founder Ky Polanco said she has seen a demonstrable decline in reach in recent months, and posts discussing abortion rights seem to be more affected than others.
“For example, with an average post we reach a million people. With our abortion content we reach about 300,000,” Polanco said, adding that engagement rates such as comments and likes have not been affected. “We’re just not reaching the number of people we would expect for such important, vital news.”
Polanco said she was relieved that her experience was not an isolated incident and that other prominent accounts were noticing the same thing. She worries that Meta’s policies could prevent the spread of timely news and information on women’s rights, voting, mental health and LGBTQ communities, and believes the value of these discussions should outweigh Meta’s goal of lightening the mood.
“However Meta views its platform, ultimately consumers will decide how they use the platform,” Polanco said. “They should really just give the community what they want, rather than telling us what we can see.”
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