Overview: Meta (Facebook’s parent company) has quietly removed the “Posts” search filter from its platform across all devices—desktop, Android, and iOS—without any official announcement. This change has significantly affected how users in Sri Lanka, especially journalists, fact-checkers, influencers, and civic organizations, access and monitor public conversations.
Key Impacts:
1. Reduced Transparency and Accessibility
- The removal makes it harder to locate public posts on specific topics.
- Users now only see broad categories like People, Groups, Pages, Events, and Videos.
- Public conversations have become more opaque, shifting control over visibility to Meta’s algorithms.
2. Challenges for Journalists and Fact-Checkers
- Previously, the filter helped trace viral claims, verify facts, and monitor evolving discussions.
- Now, searches return mixed and often irrelevant results, making verification slower and less reliable.
- This affects coverage of elections, protests, and misinformation tracking.
3. Limited Workarounds
- Desktop users can still use URL tricks (e.g.,
facebook.com/search/posts?q=keyword), but these don’t work on mobile apps. - These methods are unofficial and may stop working at any time.
4. Strategic Shift by Meta
- Possible reasons include:
- Privacy concerns and legal risk reduction.
- Encouraging engagement in Groups and Reels (which boosts ad exposure).
- Limiting misinformation by making unverified content harder to find.
5. Impact on Influencers and Content Creators
- Older posts are harder to find, reducing organic reach and discoverability.
- Brands and collaborators may struggle to verify past engagement.
- Influencers must rely on personal archives or third-party tools.
6. Broader Pattern of Reduced Search Features
- Meta has previously removed other filters like “Photos” and restricted access to older content.
- Critics argue this reduces public access and increases reliance on algorithmic feeds, which prioritize engagement over accuracy.
Sri Lanka-Specific Consequences:
- Facebook is a primary platform for news and civic engagement in Sri Lanka.
- During past events (e.g., 2019 elections, COVID-19, 2022 protests), the “Posts” filter was crucial for monitoring and reporting.
- Without it, journalists and civic groups face blind spots in public sentiment and misinformation detection.
- Ordinary users also struggle to verify information or revisit discussions, increasing vulnerability to misinformation.
Conclusion:
The removal of the “Posts” filter is a subtle but significant change that undermines transparency, accountability, and civic engagement—especially in countries like Sri Lanka where Facebook plays a central role in public discourse.
(Image courtesy of the Daily Mirror and this is a summary of a longer article published on The Daily Mirror by Prasad Perera)