Facebook and Instagram parent company, Meta has disclosed that Facebook and Instagram users in Europe will have greater control over how they view content.
A new landmark EU rule mandates that internet service providers actively filter material to safeguard consumers, particularly against hate speech and disinformation.
Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft, TikTok, and Twitter (formerly known as X) are among the 19 top participants on the web, all of which will be expected to comply with the new rules beginning next week or face steep penalties.
Billionaire Elon Musk, who since purchasing X has made a number of arbitrary changes to policies governing the types of statements that are permitted on the site including language that is deemed offensive or delivers hatred and disinformation will be under intense scrutiny in light of the EU’s new regulations.
As part of the updates announced by Meta’s president of global affairs Nick Clegg, the EU’s Digital Services Act now requires that Facebook and Instagram provide users in Europe with the option to view information that is not based on profiling.
“We’re now giving our European community the option to view and discover content on Reels, Stories, Search and other parts of Facebook and Instagram that is not ranked by Meta using these systems,” Clegg said in a blog post.
“For example, on Facebook and Instagram, users will have the option to view Stories and Reels only from people they follow, ranked in chronological order, newest to oldest.”
Users of Facebook and Instagram already had more control over how they browse information on their home feeds thanks to Meta, but the most recent change goes even farther.
Earlier this month, TikTok made a similar adjustment that would allow European users to disable the addicting feature that displays content based on their preferences.
Expanding a library to “display and archive” all the advertisements that target people in the European Union, according to Clegg, is another method to assure compliance.
More details on how Meta’s artificial intelligence systems rate material on Facebook and Instagram are one of the other updates.
