Facebook is initiating new measure to "turn down the temperature" of online political polarization.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced Wednesday that "Facebook will no longer recommend political and civic groups to its users."
The tech giant has previously implemented these measures in October for US users, in the run-up to the 2020 elections. Facebook is now considering extending these measures to limit the promotion of political content on the platform. This would mean that many advertisers would no longer be able to promote political entities or movements.
"Politics has kind of had a way of creeping into everything, and I think lot of ... the feedback that we see from our community is that people don’t want that in their experience," Zuckerberg said on a call with investors, according to Politico.
Dozens of Democrat lawmakers have been pushing for this action, following the January 6 riot at the Capitol.
"Perhaps no single entity is more responsible for the spread of dangerous conspiracy theories at scale or for inflaming anti-government grievance than the one that you started and that you oversee today as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer," read a letter from House Democrats.