Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg made the announcement during the company's fourth quarter earnings call Wednesday, saying it was part of the company's efforts to "turn down the temperature and discourage divisive conversations."
"One of the top pieces of feedback that we're hearing from our community right now is that people don't want politics and fighting to take over their experience on our services," Zuckerberg said, noting that the company is also working to reduce the amount of political content in News Feed.
Facebook had previously committed to removing political groups from recommendations in the U.S. in the run-up to the 2020 presidential election. But an investigation by The Markup recently found that lots of groups related to politics were continuing to slip through the cracks.