Seems like Instagram’s New Year’s objective is to become even more harmful. Adam Mosseri, overseer of Instagram and its Twitter imitation, Threads, mentions the platforms will begin “incorporating political material into suggestions” in the future—right on cue to evoke emotional interactions as the second era of Donald Trump’s administration begins.

In a post on (where else?) Threads, Mosseri revealed the platform’s move away from its opt-in requirement for users to explore political content. Instead, political material will be suggested by default, and users can modify the feed with three varied settings: less, standard, and more.

This adjustment—which follows Mark Zuckerberg and his youthful flair communicating that fact-checking will vanish from Meta platforms—marks a notable shift from how Threads has traditionally operated and how Instagram has consistently functioned. In 2023, Mosseri insisted that Instagram would not “support” the influx of political or hard news content on its platforms due to the controversy not justifying the “marginal interaction or profit.”

Oh, how a few years and an election shift perspectives. It’s evident that activity across Meta platforms has been dwindling for quite a while—forcing the company to morph into an AI content generator to boost its statistics and enhance user interactions. With rising sentiments of dissatisfaction, the company is referencing Elon Musk’s strategy: minimizing regulations, reducing oversight, and amplifying emotional engagement.

And truly, you’ve gotta admire the timing of their choice to activate the Discourse feature. The company navigated the 2024 election cycle by not just evading political material but actively suppressing it within algorithms. A report by the Washington Post disclosed that users who included the term “vote” within posts faced a 60% reduction in interaction, and groups like the Human Rights Campaign noticed a decrease in their audience during election times.

And that was for relatively benign endeavors like engaging in democratic processes and advocating for fairness. A probe from The Markup discovered that regarding content about the crisis in Gaza, Meta platforms downgraded posts, eliminated captions, concealed comments, restricted hashtags, and disregarded moderation pleas.

Nonetheless, with the election concluded and Trump—whom Zuckerberg described as “a badass,” dined with at Mar-a-Lago, and contributed $1 million to his inaugural ceremony—gearing up for another term, it seems he’ll once again have a supportive platform for his leadership. If nothing else, Trump has proven to be captivating content, and Meta craves that engagement boost.