According to the Washington Post, Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta and its Instagram, Facebook, and Threads platforms are suppressing content related to the 2024 election, making it harder for users to discuss politics and voting. One influencer suffered from an astonishing 63 percent drop in audience just by mentioning the word “vote” on a post.
In an exclusive investigation, Washington Post tech columnist Geoffrey A. Fowler has uncovered how Meta’s social media platforms, including Instagram, Facebook, and Threads, are actively suppressing content related to the upcoming 2024 election. This suppression is not only affecting partisan political posts but also seemingly nonpartisan content that simply mentions words like “vote.”
Fowler’s investigation focused on the Instagram account of creator Mrs. Frazzled, whose real name is Arielle Fodor. By analyzing her account data, Fowler found that whenever Fodor mentioned anything related to politics over the last six months, her audience size declined by about 40 percent compared to her nonpolitical posts. Even more striking, when she used the word “vote” in a caption across 11 posts, her average audience was 63 percent smaller. Fodor’s experience is not an isolated case; Fowler found several other Instagram creators who noticed a similar pattern.
This trend is not unique to individual accounts. A wider study by the advocacy group Accountable Tech quantified the audience drop for five prominent leftist Instagram accounts, including the Human Rights Campaign and Feminist, which post almost entirely about politics. Over 10 weeks this spring, their average audiences fell by a staggering 65 percent. The study also found that conservative accounts experienced a similar drop in engagement when discussing political topics.
Meta’s suppression of political content is a result of CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s change of heart in 2021, when he began pulling back on political content on Facebook after years of being accused by Republicans of favoring Democrats. The hatchet fell on Instagram this year, with Meta announcing in a February blog post that it would no longer “proactively recommend content about politics,” including topics “potentially related to things like laws, elections, or social topics.” This policy change has been implemented across all of Meta’s platforms, including the newly launched Threads app.
While Meta claims this decision was made because users want to see less politics overall, the lack of transparency around how and when content is suppressed leaves creators and users in a state of “algorithmic anxiety.” Meta declined to provide details on what it means by “political and social issues” or how its automated systems make these determinations. This ambiguity has led to confusion and frustration among users who feel their voices are being silenced.
Read more at the Washington Post here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship.
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