London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Friday, Aug 22, 2025

Facebook Quietly Suspended Political Group Recommendations Ahead Of The US Presidential Election

Facebook Quietly Suspended Political Group Recommendations Ahead Of The US Presidential Election

“This is a measure we put in place in the lead-up to Election Day. We will assess when to lift them afterwards, but they are temporary."
During a contentious presidential election in the US, Facebook quietly stopped recommending that people join online groups dealing with political or social issues.

Mentioned in passing by CEO Mark Zuckerberg during a Senate hearing on Wednesday, the move was confirmed to BuzzFeed News by a Facebook spokesperson. The company declined to say when exactly it implemented the change or when it would end.

“This is a measure we put in place in the lead-up to Election Day,” said Facebook spokesperson Liz Bourgeois, who added that all new groups have been filtered out of the recommendation tool as well. “We will assess when to lift them afterwards, but they are temporary."

Confirmation of the move, which Facebook did not publicly announce, comes after members of the Senate’s Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee grilled Zuckerberg about Facebook Groups and the possibility for polarization and radicalization within them. Testifying alongside Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Google CEO Sundar Pichai about content moderation on their platforms, Facebook’s chief became the main focus of questioning from Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey, who asked if the company would stop group recommendations on the social platform until the certification of results in the US presidential election.

“Senator, we have taken the step of stopping recommendations in groups for all political content or social issue groups as a precaution for this,” Zuckerberg replied.

Facebook’s use of algorithms to automatically identify and recommend similar groups for people to join was intended to boost engagement. Researchers have long warned that these recommendations can push people down a path of radicalization and that groups reinforce like-minded views and abet the spread of misinformation and hate.

More than a billion people are members of groups on Facebook, and the company has pushed users to join them by boosting their prominence in people's News Feeds. In announcing the company’s new focus on groups in 2017, Zuckerberg said that the social network had built artificial intelligence “to see if we could get better at suggesting groups that will be meaningful to you.”

“And it works!” he wrote in a post titled “Bringing the World Closer Together.” “In the first 6 months, we helped 50% more people join meaningful communities. And there's a lot more to do here."

Group recommendations may be harmless in a group for dog enthusiasts, but they can become problematic for others that are circulating conspiracy theories or scientific misinformation, according to Claire Wardle, a cofounder of misinformation research nonprofit First Draft. She said that based on anecdotal evidence she’s seen, Facebook’s automated group suggestions can drive people down radicalizing “recommendation journeys.”

“If I’m in a [group protesting stay-at-home precautions] in Wisconsin, what other groups am I being recommended? Anti-vax groups? Yellow vest groups?” she said, noting that it was impossible to study on a wide scale because it happens on people’s individual News Feeds.

In May, the Wall Street Journal reported that an internal Facebook researcher found in 2016 that “64% of all extremist group joins are due to our recommendation tools,” including the platform’s “Groups You Should Join” and “Discover” algorithms. “Our recommendation systems grow the problem,” read the researcher’s presentation.

When asked about the internal research at Wednesday’s Senate hearing by Michigan Sen. Gary Peters, Zuckerberg said he was “not familiar with that specific study,” despite the fact that he had criticized the Journal’s story internally to employees, according to audio of a recent company-wide meeting obtained by BuzzFeed News. Zuckerberg did note in the Senate hearing, however, that Facebook had taken steps to prevent groups that foster extremism or the spread of misinformation from appearing in suggested groups.

Despite those changes, organizations that violate Facebook’s own rules have managed to maintain groups on the platform. After Facebook banned right-wing militant groups and pages in August, a watchdog group found dozens of extremist groups and pages on the platform.

Earlier this month, federal and state prosecutors in Michigan charged 14 people in a plot to kidnap and possibly kill Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. A day after authorities announced the Whitmer plot, which was partly coordinated on Facebook, BuzzFeed News reported that the social network’s recommendation tools continued to suggest users follow pages espousing extremist messages.

It’s unclear how many groups are currently affected by Facebook’s limiting of recommendations for political and social issue groups in the run-up to the election. Facebook spokesperson Bourgeois declined to provide further details or say when the temporary change would be lifted.

A test of the Facebook platform for political groups showed that while the algorithmically generated suggested groups feature may have been removed, group administrators still had the power to manually suggest groups to members. Facebook’s search tool also surfaced political and social issue groups as normal.

Wardle wondered why Facebook, which had publicized several tweaks to its platform, including temporary political ad bans for the election, chose not to publicly announce the change to group recommendations. On Thursday, Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, announced it would temporarily suspend the “Recent” tab from hashtag pages, which can gather recently uploaded content tagged with a given hashtag, “to reduce the real-time spread of potentially harmful content that could pop up around the election.”

“I’m all for all platforms taking stronger steps on these things, but they need to be studying them,” Wardle said, noting that nothing would be learned if Facebook continued with business as usual after the election.
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
After 200,000 Orders in 2 Minutes: Xiaomi Accelerates Marketing in Europe
Ukraine Declares De Facto War on Hungary and Slovakia with Terror Drone Strikes on Their Gas Lifeline
Animated K-pop Musical ‘KPop Demon Hunters’ Becomes Netflix’s Most-Watched Original Animated Film
New York Appeals Court Voids Nearly $500 Million Civil Fraud Penalty Against Trump While Upholding Fraud Liability
Elon Musk tweeted, “Europe is dying”
Far-Right Activist Convicted of Incitement Changes Gender and Demands: "Send Me to a Women’s Prison" | The Storm in Germany
Hungary Criticizes Ukraine: "Violating Our Sovereignty"
Will this be the first country to return to negative interest rates?
Child-free hotels spark controversy
North Korea is where this 95-year-old wants to die. South Korea won’t let him go. Is this our ally or a human rights enemy?
Hong Kong Launches Regulatory Regime and Trials for HKD-Backed Stablecoins
China rehearses September 3 Victory Day parade as imagery points to ‘loyal wingman’ FH-97 family presence
Trump Called Viktor Orbán: "Why Are You Using the Veto"
Horror in the Skies: Plane Engine Exploded, Passengers Sent Farewell Messages
MSNBC Rebrands as MS NOW Amid Comcast’s Cable Spin-Off
AI in Policing: Draft One Helps Speed Up Reports but Raises Legal and Ethical Concerns
Shame in Norway: Crown Princess’s Son Accused of Four Rapes
Apple Begins Simultaneous iPhone 17 Production in India and China
A Robot to Give Birth: The Chinese Announcement That Shakes the World
Finnish MP Dies by Suicide in Parliament Building
Outrage in the Tennis World After Jannik Sinner’s Withdrawal Storm
William and Kate Are Moving House – and the New Neighbors Were Evicted
Class Action Lawsuit Against Volkswagen: Steering Wheel Switches Cause Accidents
Taylor Swift on the Way to the Super Bowl? All the Clues Stirring Up Fans
Dogfights in the Skies: Airbus on Track to Overtake Boeing and Claim Aviation Supremacy
Tim Cook Promises an AI Revolution at Apple: "One of the Most Significant Technologies of Our Generation"
Apple Expands Social Media Presence in China With RedNote Account Ahead of iPhone 17 Launch
Are AI Data Centres the Infrastructure of the Future or the Next Crisis?
Cambridge Dictionary Adds 'Skibidi,' 'Delulu,' and 'Tradwife' Amid Surge of Online Slang
Bill Barr Testifies No Evidence Implicated Trump in Epstein Case; DOJ Set to Release Records
Zelenskyy Returns to White House Flanked by European Allies as Trump Pressures Land-Swap Deal with Putin
The CEO Who Replaced 80% of Employees for the AI Revolution: "I Would Do It Again"
Emails Worth Billions: How Airlines Generate Huge Profits
Character.ai Bets on Future of AI Companionship
China Ramps Up Tax Crackdown on Overseas Investments
Japanese Office Furniture Maker Expands into Bomb Shelter Market
Intel Shares Surge on Possible U.S. Government Investment
Hurricane Erin Threatens U.S. East Coast with Dangerous Surf
EU Blocks Trade Statement Over Digital Rule Dispute
EU Sends Record Aid as Spain Battles Wildfires
JPMorgan Plans New Canary Wharf Tower
Zelenskyy and his allies say they will press Trump on security guarantees
Beijing is moving into gold and other assets, diversifying away from the dollar
Escalating Clashes in Serbia as Anti-Government Protests Spread Nationwide
The Drought in Britain and the Strange Request from the Government to Delete Old Emails
Category 5 Hurricane in the Caribbean: 'Catastrophic Storm' with Winds of 255 km/h
"No, Thanks": The Mathematical Genius Who Turned Down 1.5 Billion Dollars from Zuckerberg
The surprising hero, the ugly incident, and the criticism despite victory: "Liverpool’s defense exposed in full"
Digital Humans Move Beyond Sci-Fi: From Virtual DJs to AI Customer Agents
YouTube will start using AI to guess your age. If it’s wrong, you’ll have to prove it
×