Less political content in feeds, Meta's clampdown less effective against extremists

Social media platforms have become an essential infrastructure for political communication in contemporary democracies. In February 2021, the social media 'heavyweight' Meta announced that it would reduce the distribution of political content in users' news feeds, implement this globally by July 2022, then revert to its original strategy and reverse course in January 2025. Despite the importance of these changes for democratic communication, no independent research has quantified their effects on elected officials. This was done by Professor Fabio Giglietto, in a report published on 7 January by the University of Urbino. The conclusion is that this change of approach has been less effective precisely against extremists, who often carry anti-European messages, i.e. the very strand they were intended to target and curb. The report examines Meta's policy of reducing political content using a data 'baggage' of more than 2.5 million Facebook posts published by Italian parliamentarians, prominent politicians and political extremist accounts in the period 2021-2025.

A bipartisan push is maturing in parliament to tackle the issue. Two bills (A.C. 1765, A.C. 1788) currently being examined by the Commissions Meeting VII Culture and IX Transport of the Chamber of Deputies, first signatories Sara Kelany (Fdi) and Marco Furfaro (Pd) are trying to figure out how to intervene at the regulatory level on a system that does not contain but risks giving voice to extremists. The aim is to curb the practices of manipulation, alteration and censorship of the visibility of social and political content that undermine the constitutional principles of free expression of thought, transparency and non-discrimination. To this end, the proposals introduce obligations of transparency and equal treatment in the management of news and profiles of social and political relevance that the owners, managers and intermediaries of digital platforms and telematic social networks must comply with. The regulations set forth in the proposed laws apply to digital platforms and telematic social networks that have an average monthly number of users, including non-active users, equal to or greater than one hundred and fifty thousand, as well as to intermediaries operating therein.

The "Extremists" category includes Italian Facebook pages and public figures characterised mainly by anti-establishment narratives, criticism of mainstream media and public figures, and scepticism towards vaccines and health policies. Operating within a non-mainstream media ecosystem, these accounts provide a curated feed of counter-information, news commentary, and lifestyle content. Although Euroscepticism and criticism of Western foreign policy are present, the dominant themes focus on distrust of institutions, criticism of the Covid vaccine and opposition to narratives perceived as elitist. The accounts cover the entire political spectrum, with content from the right, extreme right and extreme left. This list was derived from independent research on platform transparency and was not compiled by the author for this study. The material consists of 2,529,933 posts on 901 accounts, covering 256 full weeks from 3 January 2021 to 23 November 2025, a timeframe where there was no shortage of election appointments, in Italy and at the European level. This represents about five years of activity on Facebook.

The results document a 72% reduction in the average reach of re-elected members of parliament, which dropped from around 53,000 views per post before the new policy was introduced to 15,000 at the low point. Although Meta's revocation of the policy in January 2025 produced a significant rebound, post-revocation reach only returned to 65% of pre-policy levels. A robustness check reveals asymmetric effects: while so-called 'mainstream' politicians suffered substantial losses in visibility, the increase in frequency of posts by extremist accounts more than offset the modest decline per post, leading to an increase in total weekly reach during the policy's enforcement period. These results, the report notes, highlight significant transparency gaps in Meta's policy communication.

Meta's policy on the reduction of political content was applied 'continuously during an almost uninterrupted electoral cycle', from the 2022 parliamentary elections to the 2024 European elections, up to the local elections. The effects are profoundly asymmetrical: until 2023, against a minimum drop in visibility for extremist accounts of 3.6 per cent, institutional politicians lost on average about 43 per cent. And the comparison with 2021 is even sharper: parliamentarians lose 73.4 per cent of visibility, while extremists grow by 13.6 per cent.