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| Facebook is reducing political content in its news feed |
Facebook plans to test how people interact to reduce political content in news sources.
The social media giant will temporarily restrict political content to a small group of people in Canada, Brazil and Indonesia starting this week and test it in the US a few weeks later.
The test will continue over the coming months, and the trial aims to respond to people's desire for political content not to dominate the news.
Facebook aims to improve news sources by balancing what people want to see.
The platform noted that political content now makes up only 6% of typical US news sources.
Nevertheless, this small percentage clearly has a major impact, leading to a longstanding debate about the polarization of people in political history that is often misunderstood.
It is widely criticized that Facebook has fueled polarization and reinforced the voice of the far right.
The platform said in October that it temporarily stopped recommending US users to citizens and political groups, and made it clear last month that the change was permanent.
Usually, political content downgrading tests are part of Facebook's initiative. The CEO of the company said: Facebook wants to continue political discussions at the local level, but users do not want the guidance and find it difficult to control their experience with our services.
Facebook has stated that health officials from official groups like the World Health Organization and Coronavirus News can be free from political distraction.
After years of frustration with Facebook's handling of political content, these tests continued for several years.
The Wall Street Journal reported last year that Facebook halted internal efforts to contain the discord on its website in 2018.
At the same time, Facebook has made its own seemingly divided decisions.
The newspaper reported that in 2017, the company avoided limiting the distribution of political content that could have a significant impact on rights and instead enacted changes that severely restrict access to left-wing websites.