Instagram made changes to the image-sharing platform for users in the United States (US) to prevent the spread of hoaxes or misinformation surrounding the November 3 presidential election.
For users in the United States, Instagram will temporarily remove the "newest" feature from the hashtag page starting Thursday (29/10/2020).
This was conveyed by Instagram in a statement on Twitter, as reported by Reuters, Friday (30/10/2020).
"We are doing this to reduce the real-time spread of potentially dangerous content that could disrupt elections," the statement said.
Instagram's "newest" feature organizes hashtags in chronological order and amplifies content.
Researchers have warned that automated amplification could lead to the rapid spread of misinformation on social media platforms.
This development comes as social media companies face increasing pressure to combat election-related misinformation.
Earlier this month, Twitter Inc said it would temporarily remove the "retweet" because it could potentially disrupt the US election process or the implementation of election results, including through violence.
Twitter recently announced some temporary steps to slow down content amplification, for example, from October 20 to at least the end of the US election week, global users pressing "retweet" will be pre-directed to the "tweet quote" button to encourage people to add their own comments, before "retweeting" people's posts.
Twitter said it would also stop bringing up trending topics without providing an explanation.
Prachaar: