Facebook will stop recommending political groups to its users.
The social networking platform announced on Wednesday (27.01.21) it will no longer recommend civic and political groups to its users, as part of its continued promise to “discourage divisive conversations”.
In a call with analysts following the company’s fourth-quarter earnings, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said: “This is a continuation of work we’ve been doing for a while to turn down the temperature and discourage divisive conversations.”
The news comes after the company temporarily stopped recommending these groups to users in October ahead of the US presidential election.
And in addition, Facebook is now considering steps to reduce the amount of political content that users see in their News Feed.
Zuckerberg added: “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.”
Meanwhile, Facebook launched Facebook News in the UK this week, following its introduction in the US last year.
Major news publishers - including Sky News, Channel 4, The Guardian, the Daily Mail, the Telegraph and Financial Times - have signed deals with Facebook to provide content for the service.
The feature is an attempt to address friction between the platform and news publishers over advertising spend increasingly benefiting tech firms rather than individual news outlets.
Facebook News is a dedicated tap within the mobile app, which you can access by tapping the three-line button for more options.
It will include a mix of big daily news stories alongside 'personalised' news chosen based on the user's interests.
Facebook will pay publishers "for content that is not already on the platform", while the feature also gives those publishers new advertising and subscription "opportunities".
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